VisitBritain

Inbound visits and spend: quarterly, regional

See the latest annual estimates of the number of visits to the UK and total spend by inbound visitors, by UK region, based on the International Passenger Survey (IPS) released by the Office of National Statistics.

Released on:

13 June 2025

Next release:

To be confirmed

For further information, please contact [email protected].

Report highlights

  • After a strong start to the year at the total GB level, growth in inbound visits slowed in Q3 and Q4 2024 as GB saw declines vs 2019 and 2023 for both quarters.
  • The Rest of England saw larger declines compared to London in the last two quarters of 2024.
  • In Q3 and Q4 2024 declines in visits were seen across all regions compared to 2019 and 2023 apart from East of England.
  • Scotland continued to see the strongest recovery in 2024 and although visits were slightly down YoY in Q3, Q4 saw a record 1.1m visits.
  • Inbound visits to Wales remained below 2019 levels in Q3 and Q4 2024 and saw a moderate decline in Q3 vs 2023 but growth in Q4. 

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 total GB. 

View the latest report

PDF

IPS Total GB Nations and Regions Summary Q3 and Q4 2024 (Published 13 June 2025)

Access the provisional estimates for Q3 and Q4 2024 in our summary report which covers the headlines and distribution by GB nation and England regions.

IPS GB Nations and Regions pivot tables 2019-Q4 2024 (Published 13 June 2025)

Download the data in Excel and explore the detail in the pre-built pivot tables.

Explore the Nations & Regions inbound data in full

Use our visualisations to see this data in greater depth and clarity. Filter by inbound market, UK nation, UK region, season and purpose. 

The data for Q3 and Q4 2024 is not yet available in the visualisation.

About the survey

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: 

  • Confidence intervals are not available for inbound estimates to GB nations and regions for Q3 and Q4 2024.
  • 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. 

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. 

  • An important note about the survey’s methodology when interpreting regional data:

    • Visitors who spend at least one night in the UK during their trip are asked where they stayed. This information can be aggregated to look at the number of visits, nights, and spending in different regions, cities, and towns.
    • Information at the regional level is often based on very small sample sizes, and as such should be treated with extreme caution, and used solely as an indicative estimate. The IPS is a national survey, and is not designed to be statistically robust at the regional level.
    • Visitors often spend nights in more than one location during their trip. This means that ‘visits’ values for different regions will not sum to the national total – for example a visitor from the US making a single visit to the UK could be counted as making a ‘staying visit’ to London, to Edinburgh and to Chester.
    • The data includes a ‘Total UK’ category, representing the true national total for visits.
    • ‘Double counting’ is not an issue when looking at visitor nights or spending.
    • No information is recorded about where visitors arriving or departing the UK on the same day travel during their trip, nor is information recorded about where ‘staying visitors’ go for ‘day trips’. If a visitor from France spends four nights in Edinburgh, they may take a day trip to St Andrews and another to Stirling, but this information will not be recorded in the IPS.

    A note on the English regions

    • Data for each of the English regions can be viewed individually, or at an aggregated level. The aggregated levels available are:
    • Rest of England: all regions outside London combined.
    • England’s North Country: North East, North West and Yorkshire combined.
    • Central England: West Midlands, East Midlands and East of England combined.
    • Southern England: South East and South West combined.

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