BUSINESS IS BOOMING
SO-CALLED “BUSINESS TOURISM” TO THE UK - FOR MEETINGS, CONFERENCES AND OTHER WORK - HAS HIT RECORD LEVELS
TOURISTS flocking to the UK spent a record £5.4bn on business 2016. That
so-called means “business tourism” now makes up nearly a sixth of all tourist income in the UK.
Business tourism is when people visit a different country for work purposes.
The £5.4bn splurged in the UK is almost a BILLION more than four years ago - when the figure was £4.5bn - meaning financial gains from business trips have increased by
21%. The remaining £27.3bn spent in the UK from international visitors in 2016 was by holiday makers. Some 9.1m people visited the UK in 2016 for business purposes, spending an average £593 per trip. The USA topped the list, with US citizens spending a huge £1bn across 687,000 business trips - meaning each trip contributed £1505 on average to the UK’s economy.
Switzerland ranked second, with people spending £378m across 242,000 business trips to the UK. This means each trip saw £1,562 contributed to the UK’s economy.
Closely behind was Germany, with a £357m annual spend on business tourism in the UK. Some £416 was spent per 859,000 international work trips by Germans.
Those travelling to the UK from Ireland splashed out £349m, an average of £538 across 649,000 trips.
The French contributed £313m to our business tourism economy, spending £372 on average on 841.000 trips.
In fact, six of the top ten spenders on business tourism were EU countries including Germany, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy.
People visiting from Australia spent the most per visit. Australians spent an average of £2,058 for each of their 69,000 trips, totalling £142m. India was also a heavy spender per visit. There were 119,000 business tourism trips by Indians, when spent an average of £1,773 each time. That made for a total spend of £211m. Lithuanians spent the least amount of money per business trip. In all, people from Lithuania made 89,000 business trips to the UK in 2016, but only spent an average of £78 on each one.