While more and more foreign tourists prefer to visit continental Europe, German and Spanish tourists spend their euro outside the continent in the UK. London hotels were not the only beneficiaries of the increased popularity. In the first nine months of 2017, a record number of tourists visited the country’s regions 12.7 million visitors. That is 4% more than during the same period of 2016. Foreign guests spent more than £6 billion in England, that way helping local economies and communities.
Only hotels in Wales greeted as many as 990,000 foreign visitors in the period from January to September 2017, showing the growth of 6%. The total spending of overseas guests was £337 million during this period. Scotland had 14% more guests or 2.6 million international tourists in total in the first nine months of 2017. In this part of the UK, tourists spent £1.8 billion.
The UK’s Tourism Minister has expressed his delight with the good news, underlining that it is particularly important to attract foreign tourists to regions of the country, rather than make them stay in London only. The country has been promoting itself as a must-visit destination and plans to continue these activities as nowadays it’s not a secret for anyone that tourism sector is a significant booster of countries’ economy in general.
That is particularly true for the United Kingdom as tourism remains one of the most valuable export industries for the country. According to forecasts, more than 41 million foreign tourists will visit the UK in 2018, spending more than £27 billion during their stay. The West Midlands and the North West Midlands experienced the biggest growth in the number of overseas visitors the year on year increase estimated more than 10% for them. In absolute numbers, these regions greeted 1.8 million and 2.4 million foreign guests respectively.
Visitors from Germany spent record £1.3 billion in the first nine months of 2017 in the UK. The number of visits from this European country was also growing by 2% to 2.6 million. There was also a record number of tourists from Spain in the UK up by 11% to 1.9 million visits. In total, visitors from this country spent £861 million from January to September 2017, achieving the growth of 14%. The significance of Chinese tourists is also growing for the UK. More than 260 thousand visits or 33% up from this country within nine months of 2017 is a good result for the United Kingdom. Travelers spent £557 million, reaching a year-on-year increase of 48%. In total, the UK enjoyed 30.1 million inbound visits, which is 7% higher than a year ago.