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Britons spent a record-breaking £5.5bn on day trips across England in August, the highest spend recorded for a single month since research began in 2011.
That’s according to new figures from VisitEngland’s day-tripping survey, which found August also saw the highest number of day trips taken in any month since 2012 with 151 million day trips across the country – up 14% on the same month last year.
The figures bring overall domestic tourism day trips in England from January to August to 988 million – up 14% on the same period last year – and spend up 9% to £32.2bn, both records for the first eight months of the year.
Sally Balcombe, chief executive, said: “It is fantastic to see that more of us are getting out and experiencing the huge range of quality destinations and tourism products on offer right across the country.
“England is packed full of incredible experiences that you can only get here and we look forward to continuing to work with the tourism industry to develop England’s competitive tourism offer, get more people out exploring the country and drive growth across all the regions.”
The North East of England saw the largest percentage increase in the number of day trips from January to August compared with the same period last year with 52.8 million trips (up 34%) followed by the West Midlands with 95.1 million trips (30%).
Meanwhile, the East Midlands saw the largest increase on spend from day trips with day trippers spending £3bn from January to August (up 31%), followed by the South East, which was up 29% to £5.6bn. London had the largest spend on day trips with £7.3bn.
The top journey purposes for day trips were to ‘go out for a meal’, followed by ‘taking part in leisure activities’ – including walking, cycling and golf – and ‘visiting friends and family.’
