Tourist visits to the UK hit new all-time high
The post-Brexit tourist boom saw a record-breaking 3.8m people visit the country, a two per cent increase on the same period last year, and the highest number of visitors ever recorded in August.
Tourists spent a total of £2.6bn, up four per cent year-on-year, driven by a 13 per cent rise in visitors from North America.
A total of 510,000 Americans visited the UK in August as tourists took advantage of the favourable exchange rate after the EU referendum.
The new figures bring the total number of inbound visits to the UK from January to August this year to a record 25m, with tourists spending £14.6bn.
VisitBritain chief executive Sally Balcombe said: “These back-to-back record-breaking figures not only underpin a longer-term pattern of growth for inbound tourism, one of our fastest growing export industries, but also demonstrate its growing importance to the UK economy.”
Hotels and restaurants saw a ‘record rise’ in growth in August as tourism was bolstered by the weakened pond,according to the Markit/CIPS purchasing managers’ index.
