VisitBritain/VisitEngland Annual Review Launch 2016/17

10th October 2017

Categories: Business News

Today we launched our annual review, announcing that an additional visitor spend of £872 million was generated by our inbound and domestic marketing in 2016/17. This means that for every £1 invested in us for marketing activity, £20 of additional visitor spend was generated.

2016 set a record for inbound tourism to Britain with 37.6 million visits and £22.5 billion visitor spend. From January to July 2017, there was a record 23.1 million overseas visits to the UK (up 8% from the same period last year) with visitors spending £13.3 billion (up 9%). In addition, domestic overnight holidays in England rose 7% to a record 20.4 million between January and June this year (a 7% increase). 

Other key achievements include: 

• Helping the tourism industry to work together to submit a tourism sector deal bid to Government for consideration under the industrial strategy white paper
• £20 million in private sector investment (cash and in-kind) in 2016/17 from commercial partners as well as global brands to extend our reach and impact
• The completion of the first year of the Discover England Fund, which supported 20 pilot projects in 2016-17 and six large-scale projects of more than £1 million announced to date (with further announcements to come)
• Enhancing our product development and distribution capability, launching many new rail itineraries that join up visitor experiences across the nations and regions, and the launch of a three-year collaboration with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to shift perceptions of British food and drink.

Announcing the figures at our annual review launch today, attended by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Arts, Heritage and Tourism, John Glen MP, we also re-stated our priorities for 2016/17. 

These include us building further towards becoming the leading digital tourism agency by 2020. We will continue to build deeper, longer-term commercial partnerships and administer the final two years of the Discover England Fund in order to develop a step-change in English tourism. We will also engage with the travel trade through our events and missions and develop new products for them to distribute. 

Visit our Annual Review 2016/17 website to find out more.

Finally, we look forward to working with you all over the coming year and helping the British tourism industry grow further.