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New figures released today show a record-breaking August for inbound tourism to the UK with 3.8 million visits, up 2% on the same month last year.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures also show overseas visitors to the UK spent £2.6bn during the month – a 4% increase on August 2015.
Strong growth was seen from North America, Which includes the US – the UK’s most valuable visitor market – with 510,000 visits, up 13% compared with the same month last year.
Meanwhile, the figures showed a record-breaking first eight months of the year for visits from EU countries, the UK’s largest visit-generating region, with visits up 3% on the same period last year to 16.8 million.
Tourism minister Tracey Crouch said: “2016 has been an incredible year for British tourism and underlined our status as one of the top visitor destinations in the world. We continue to attract a record number of tourists from across the globe, which is not only great news for the sector, but the whole economy.”
The record-breaking numbers follow figures released by VisitBritain earlier this month that showed overseas visitors spent an extra £800m across the nations and regions of Britain.
