Over £1 billion generated by tourism businesses

10th October 2018

Categories: Member News

Visit Britain/Visit England have launched their annual review which announces that visitors spent more than £1 billion in Britain over the last year as a result of international and domestic activity. This means for every £1 that Government invested in the organisation, Visit Britain/Visit England delivered £25 to the British economy, spread across the nations and regions.

These figures were announced at the annual review, which was attended by the Tourism Minister, Michael Ellis MO.

2017 set a record for inbound tourism to Britain with 39.2 million visits and £24.5 billion visitor spend and the 40 million inbound visitors target is close to being broken two years early! As if this wasn’t good enough, domestic holidays saw good growth last year with £70 billion spent in England by domestic visitors.

Other key achievements include:

The launch of the new global campaign – I Travel For… - tapping into the passion points that people travel for and promoting lesser known experiences across the nations and regions of Britain.
£13 million in private sector investment for 2017/18 from partners across the industry as well as commercial partners and global brands.
£2 million profit generated from the online shop, money which is reinvested into activities to grow the value of tourism.
Funding from the Discover England Fund awarded to 22 new projects in the last year, 12 of which in excess of £1million.
 

As well as these, the new focus on business events saw representatives from Visit England/ Visit Britain work with venues and destinations to help them win targeted conferences and become more internationally competitive, securing more international business events for the UK.

At the annual review, work going forward will focus on developing the strategy for the next five years with the aim to make tourism one of the most successful and productive sectors for the economy.

To see more from the annual review and to find out more about the activity to build the value of tourism over the past year, please click here.