Inbound tourist visits to the UK 2019-2023, by purpose of trip

Published by Statista Research Department, Jan 21, 2025

Following the sharp drop in inbound visits to the United Kingdom during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the volume of overseas visits was close to returning to pre-pandemic levels in 2023. That year, there were nearly 38 million overseas resident visits to the UK, while the figure for 2019 had been 40.86 million visits. In both years, the most common reason for making a trip to the UK had been for holidays. 

Number of overseas resident visits to the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2023, by purpose of trip (in millions)

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Sources

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Release date

May 2024

Region

United Kingdom

Survey time period

2019 to 2023

Supplementary notes

*The source specifies that the International Passenger Survey (IPS) published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) was suspended on March 16, 2020, due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Thus, 2020 figures are only for Q1 of that year.

**The source adds the following: "During the first half of 2021 (January to June 2021), the IPS survey was operational at UK airports only. In ordinary times surveying would also be conducted at UK tunnel terminals (Eurostar and Eurotunnel) as well as some UK sea ports (e.g. Dover), but this was not possible during this period". Dover traffic was only included from the third quarter of the year.

2019 figures are based on the International Passenger Survey (IPS).

This statistic is using original data from the Office for National Statistics and includes copyright material from © Crown, licensed under the Open Government License v3.0.

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