Our achievements 2019/20
Our results for 2019/20 show that we have more than delivered on our Government targets.
In 2019/20, we generated £793 million in additional visitor spend across the nations and regions of Britain. This means that for every £1 invested in us, a visitor spends £21 in the UK benefiting the economy.
In 2019/20 The VisitBritain Shop generated £1.2 million in gross profit which was invested in marketing Britain overseas. And we generated £7.7million in cash and marketing-in-kind.
Our Business Events Growth Programme which provided grants to grow international business events in the UK achieved an estimated ROI of 27:1.
Download our 19/20 Annual Review (PDF, 14MB) to see more results.
Tourism performance pre-COVID19
In 2019, the UK tourism industry was thriving. As Britain’s third largest export industry, the tourism sector contributed £127 billion to Britain’s economy, around 9% GDP.
Since 2010 it had been the fastest growing sector when it comes to employment, accounting for over three million jobs. The sector was projected to grow 3.8% a year by 2025 — faster than the digital industry, and was one of a select number of industries supported with a tailored sector deal in 2019, recognising its importance to the economy.
In 2019 inbound tourism was setting new records with inbound visitors spending £28.4 billion, up 7% on inbound spending in 2018. Visits were also up (1%) in 2019, with 40.9 million visits to the UK recorded — just short of the record-holder in 2017.
Domestic tourism in 2019 was also strong, seeing a return to normal following the weakened 2018 — a year beset by bad weather that affected the number of holidays taken. The total number of domestic overnight trips taken in England increased 1.7% to 99.1 million with British residents spending £19.5 billion.
Research
View our England research section for a wealth of market intelligence, research and insights into tourism in England.
See our COVID-19 Consumer Sentiment tracker for latest insights on propensity of UK residents to travel domestically.
See our Inbound COVID-19 Sentiment Tracker in partnership with Visit Wales, VisitScotland and London & Partners.
See the latest forecasts for domestic and inbound recovery.
View our inbound research and markets sections to find more facts and figures on international tourism to Britain.
