1. Inbound markets & segments
  2. Segments
  3. Visiting friends & relatives

Visiting friends & relatives

Visiting friends and relations (VFR) is a very resilient segment of the inbound visitor economy over recent years, with those travelling to the UK to see friends and relatives participating in many activities more traditionally associated with holiday visitors.

Visiting friends and relatives by market

The latest quarterly data from the International Passenger Survey is available below. View data for visits, nights, and spend as well as filter visits by age, gender, season, mode of transport, length of stay. We also have latest quarterly data available for the whole of the UK, for the nations and regions of Britain and trend data by area, where you can filter by journey purpose.

The International Passenger Survey (IPS) was suspended on 16 March 2020 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic until the start of 2021. The ONS have made every effort to produce high-quality estimates for the periods when IPS data is not being collected but have not been able to produce a full set of results therefore no data from 2020 is available on the interactive chart below. Interviewing initially began at UK airports at the start of 2021, though the IPS remained suspended at some sea ports and train stations during the year. Data for 2021 and 2022 is also excluded below as there were no interviews at Eurotunnel until July 2022 and data from Dover was only collected from Q3 2021.

In 2021, VisitBritain undertook research into UK expats living in the UAE. Three quarters of UK expats who visit from the UAE come to visit friends and family. Find out more about this lucrative audience and their visitation attitudes and behaviours (PDF, 10MB). Also see pen portraits of the two Expat personas; Reluctant Returners (PDF, 343KB) and Valiant Visitors (PDF, 385KB). 

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OVERVIEW OF UK VISITOR STATISTICS {{activeYear.name}}

Number of visits

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Total expenditure (GBP)

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Total nights spent

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Average length of stay (Nights)

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Average spend per visit (GBP)

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