Inbound visits and spend: quarterly, UK

• Provisional estimates suggest that inbound visits were just behind pre-COVID levels in 2024, with moderate growth vs 2023. Spend remained below 2019 and 2023 levels in real terms. These numbers are badged as ‘official statistics in development’ and we urge caution with trend analysis, especially for the second half of the year.
• Visits to Great Britain in Q3 and Q4 2024 saw a dip vs both 2019 and 2023 resulting in a weaker second half of the year. Visits were down 12% and 10% vs pre-COVID 2019 levels and saw a gentle YoY decline at -5% and -2% respectively.
• Visitor spend in the last two quarters was on par with the same quarters in 2023. Q3 was stronger vs 2019 with visitors spending a record £10.2bn but Q4 was slightly weaker with visitors spending £7.4bn, down 2% vs 2019.
• Similar to visits, nights saw declines vs 2023 and 2019. 

Please note, the Q3 and Q4 2024 data are badged as ‘official statistics in development’ and estimates are subject to future change as further improvements to the methods are introduced. See the ‘About the survey’ section at the bottom of this page for more detail on caveats to the data. 

See the provisional quarterly results for 2024 by nations and regions. 

The International Passenger Survey (IPS) is a continuous survey carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It covers all major air, sea and tunnel ports, providing detailed information on the numbers and types of visits made by people travelling to and from the UK.

Please note due to the ONS’ ongoing planned improvements to the travel and tourism statistics: 

• Northern Ireland data is not available in this publication due to the changes in how data is being collected for Northern Ireland in 2024. Therefore, 2024 data only covers inbound visits to Great Britain, as opposed to the United Kingdom which is usually reported, and many data points are therefore slightly lower. UK level data will be available in the Travel Trends 2024 publication. This itself only causes a minor impact on the comparability of 2024 data with previous years, as Northern Ireland makes up a small proportion of overall UK inbound visits and spend (c.1%).
• VisitBritain have made comparisons between 2024 GB totals and 2019/2023 UK totals, but the ONS is not doing so and comparisons between Q3/Q4 2024 data and prior data are not endorsed by the ONS.
• VisitBritain notes that the decline in visit numbers this data shows for the second half of 2024, compared to 2023, is in contrast to several other data sources that we have access to, which suggest moderate growth. In particular, there is a sharp decline in visits by ferry in the IPS data. We have included trended data for transparency and completeness, but we urge caution when interpreting these estimates and advise users to note the ONS’ badging of the Q3 and Q4 data as ‘official statistics in development’. The ONS will conduct further investigation into the survey design and administrative data used for calibration to better understand this difference.
• Whilst the IPS data collection method has been harmonised with the Civil Aviation Authority, the data has not yet been incorporated alongside the IPS data, with plans to do so by the Q3 2025 publication. 

The ONS are also undertaking a review of the historical data, so previous years data may be subject to marginal change. See the latest IPS data publication and update on improvements to the travel and tourism statistics on the ONS website. 

 For further information, refer to the About the IPS page.