More tourists spending more cash in Britain
THE NUMBER of visitors coming to Britain rose in the third quarter of last year, official figures have showed – and they spent more money than at the same time a year earlier.
The number of tourists increased four per cent on the year to 10.2m over the three-month period.
Britain’s earnings from the visitors increased 2.5 per cent to £7.4bn.
By country, the biggest contingent of visitors came from Germany, which sent 1.08m tourists in the quarter.
They spent £589m on those visits.
The US sent the next most, at 1.04m. But they spent more than the Germans, giving the UK income of £1.03bn in the three-month period.
Next up was France, with 887,000 visitors, spending a total of £332m.
The number of British residents’ visits overseas also increased.
A total of 20.8m visits were made abroad in the quarter, up 2.1 per cent on the same period of 2013.
Those Britons spent £12.8bn overseas in the three-month period, up 1.5 per cent on the year.
The favoured destination was Spain, which received 4.7m visits and £2.6bn of spending, followed by France with 3.2m visitors and £1.4bn of spending.