VisitBritain Projects Robust Recovery in International Visitor Spending

VisitBritain released a 2023 inbound tourism forecast projecting £29.5 billion ($36.67 billion) in international visitor spending, which represents a 4 percent increase from the record international spending seen during 2019.

The inbound tourism forecast illustrates that “spending by inbound visitors is predicted to grow faster than visitor volume, with higher spending also per trip,” VisitBritain said.

“Looking at the number of visits to the U.K., 35.1 million visits are forecast, 86 percent of the 40.9 million in 2019.”

Additionally, VisitBritain upgraded its year-end 2022 forecast to 29.7 million inbound visits, which represents 73 percent of the visitors experienced in 2019; and £25.9 billion ($32.2 billion) in spending, representing 91 percent of spending in 2019.

In particular, U.S. and Canada numbers were strong through the summer, with 2.1 million visitors between June and August – a 7 percent increase compared to the same period in 2019 and a record high for North American visitors in August.

“Our priority has been to rebuild international visitor value so it is very encouraging to see the continued strong recovery forecast in spend, supporting jobs, small businesses and local economies right across the country,” said VisitBritain CEO Patricia Yates said. “Tourism is also an extremely competitive global industry. We’ll be out with a new campaign early next year competing hard in markets where we’re seeing strong growth. This includes the USA, our most valuable inbound market with spending up 15 percent so far this year, as well as the Gulf and our major European markets.”

VisitBritain is scheduled to unveil the new GREAT Britain marketing campaign with a “See Things Differently” theme highlighting the warmth of the British people and the destination’s adventurous and inclusive options.

“The USA and Canada are important markets to drive the recovery of inbound tourism to Britain and the high number of visits and spend through summer 2022 demonstrate that the demand for travel to Britain remains strong in North America,” said Gavin Landry, VisitBritain’s executive vice president for the Americas & Australia.