VisitEngland

Great Britain domestic overnight trips: archive

Explore the historical annual reports, quarterly and monthly summaries of the Great Britain Tourism Survey (GBTS).

About the survey

The Great Britain Tourism Survey (GBTS), and its predecessor United Kingdom Tourism Survey (UKTS), measured the volume and value of domestic overnight tourism trips taken by residents of Britain, and provide detailed information about trip and visitor characteristics. 

This archive lists reports from 2015, if you need any earlier data or need any further information, please contact [email protected].

Annual data for the GBTS from 2011 and UKTS dating back to 2006 are available on request, though the UKTS has been running since 1989. Results from 2000 to 2010 considered the whole of the UK, and are not directly comparable with the GBTS from 2011, which considered residents of Great Britain only. Since January 2011, data about trips taken by Northern Ireland residents have been collected by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA).

In 2020, the survey methodology changed (including some definitions) and the project has been labelled as ‘statistics in development’. Once two full calendar years (2022 and 2023) worth of data were available, the project has undergone a thorough methodological review and further improvements were agreed and implemented on the 2022 and 2023 data. Consequently, results published for 2022 onwards are not comparable with data published for 2019 and previous years.

Domestic overnight trips, annual reports archive

These reports provide the main results including estimates of the total volume and value of  overnight visits and trip characteristics. Results are provided at an overall Great Britain level and individually for visits taken to destinations in England, Scotland and Wales. Expand the section below to see the annual reports from 2006 to 2022 that take a deep dive into overnight visits taken in Great Britain.

Please note that the 2022 deep dive report is based on pre-methodological review and will be soon replaced with 2023 deep dive report, which will be based on the revised data.

  • Domestic Overnight Trips, Annual Report 2022

    Download (3.52 MB)

GBTS 2022 and 2023 archive

NOTE: The domestic overnight trips volume and value estimates for 2022 and 2023 have now been re-issued following a completed methodological review and are available on Great Britain domestic overnight trips: latest resultspage.

On the same page, you can find further information on the methodological review, please see the ‘GBTS Statement on methodological review (April 2024)’ and ‘GBTS overnight trips methodology review 2024, Report (published 5 Sept 2024)’ in the ‘Supporting documents’ section.

data comparability

Due to extensive methodological changes, results from 2022 cannot be compared to data up to 2019. Please read the methodology and quality report (PDF, 215KB) to find out more.

GBTS 2019 archive

GBTS 2018 archive

GBTS 2017 archive

GBTS 2016 archive

2016 Domestic Overnight Tourism Performance Summary

In 2016, British residents took 99.3 million overnight trips in England, totalling 288 million nights away from home and expenditure of £18.5 billion, with an average trip length of 2.90 nights.

Overall trends

The number of domestic trips was 4% lower than in 2015.

Holiday travel

  • 44.7 million holiday trips were taken in England in 2016. The number of holiday trips taken was on par with 2015.
  • At 29.3 million, short breaks of 1-3 nights accounted for two-thirds of English holidays by volume. 15.4 million 4+ night holidays were taken.

Business travel

  • 14.1 million overnight business trips were taken in England in 2016. The number of business trips was on par with 2015.

Visiting friends and relatives (VFR)

  • The number of VFR trips taken declined by 9% in 2016, to 36.9 million.

GBTS 2016 Data

Update on 29 September 2017:In 2016, a new data processing platform was introduced to deliver the GBTS survey, and with this new platform, some changes were made to the way that results were calculated for a small number of respondents. This has resulted in a break in the time series reporting for the project.

To enable users to understand the impact the changes made, we have now re-processed 2015 data using the new 2016 data processing platform. In summary, the effect of these changes at GB level was to increase the estimated number of 2015 trips by 0.6%, the estimated number of bednights by 0.2% and to reduce expenditure by -2.9% compared to the published data.

2015-16 Comparison Report PPTX

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The 2015-16 Comparison Report included a month by month overview of original and reprocessed data for 2015, with both sets of results compared to 2016 data, for trips, bednights and expenditure. This provides users with information about year on year changes calculated using directly comparable data.

When making trend comparisons between 2015 and 2016, users should refer to the re-processed 2015 data (“Dimensions”). For all other purposes (comparisons between 2015 and earlier years, profiles by trip characteristic etc) the originally published 2015 data should continue to be used.

For more detail about the changes made and further guidance about how to interpret results, the 2015-16 Data Processing Changes Explanation document provides a comprehensive overview of the changes made, the reasons for these, and the way they have impacted results reporting.

2015-16 Data Processing Changes Explanation

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Trips to different parts of England in 2016

Each quarter we published GBTS results for the nine regions, covering the volume and value of domestic overnight trips to different parts of England. This included quarterly, year-to-date and past 12-month figures.

Most Visited Towns

The Most Visited Towns data is published using three-year averages, listing the most visited English towns by trip numbers and spend in total for holiday trips, and for business trips. The most recent data is for the three-year period from 2014 and 2016.

Most Visited Towns by Trip Purpose 2014-16 XLSX

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Local Authorities and other areas

For geographical areas of England (Local Authorities, Counties, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP) areas) data is published using three-year averages only. The most recent data is for the three-year period from 2014 to 2016.

LA and county analysis 2016

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The data is available in Excel as follows:

Master Spreadsheet (Local Authorities, Counties, LEP areas)

Download (425.77 KB)

Local Authorities 2016 Spreadsheet

Download (353.19 KB)

Counties 2016 Spreadsheet

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LEP 2016 Spreadsheet

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A combined spreadsheet has been produced for Local Authorities including data from both the GBTS survey (domestic overnight trips) and the GBDVS survey (day visits) to create a combined total of all domestic trips to Local Authorities.

Local Authorities combined analysis (domestic overnight and day visits)

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Note: All year on year trends estimates are based on a comparison with a re-processed 2015 data. More detail about this can be found in the below explanation document.

Explanation document

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GBTS 2015 reports archive

2015 Domestic Overnight Tourism Performance Summary

In 2015, British residents took 102.7 million overnight trips in England, totalling 300 million nights away from home, with an expenditure of £19.6 billion. £191 was spent per trip, and with an average trip length of 2.92 nights, the average spend per night was £65.

Overall trends

The number of domestic trips was 11% higher than in 2014, and the amount spent increased by 8%, reaching an all-time high in nominal terms.

Holiday travel

  • 43.7 million holiday trips were taken in England in 2015, with spending of £10.7 billion. The number of holiday trips taken was 7% higher than in 2014, and the amount spent also increased by 7%.
  • At 29.2 million, short breaks of 1 to 3 nights account for two-thirds of English holidays by volume, and over half the market value (£5.9 billion), with an average spend per night of £104, and spend per trip of £201.
  • 14.5 million 4+ night holidays were taken, generating £4.9 billion in expenditure. While spend per trip is higher than for short breaks (£334), average spend per night is considerably lower (£54).

Business travel

  • 13.9 million overnight business trips were taken in England in 2015, worth £3.3 billion. The number of business trips rose by 2% year-on-year, though spending fell back, by 5%.

Visiting friends and relatives (VFR)

  • The number of VFR trips taken rose by 13% in 2015, to 40.6 million, the highest recorded total since 2006, while spending reached a record level (in nominal terms) of £4.7 billion, representing a 15% increase year on year.
  • Both holiday and so-called “duty” VFR saw growth in 2015, with volumes for both categories up by 13%, while spending went up by 12% and 15% respectively.

Most Visited Towns

The Most Visited Towns data was published using three-year averages, listing the most visited English towns by trip numbers and spend in total, for holiday trips, and for business trips. The most recent data was for the three-year period from 2013 to 2015.

Most Visited Towns by Trip Purpose 2013-15 xls

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Local Authorities and other areas

For other geographical areas of England (Local Authorities, Counties, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP) areas and Parliamentary Constituencies) data was published using three-year averages only. The most recent data was for the three-year period from 2013 to 2015.

Introduction to this analysis

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The data is available in Excel as follows:

Master spreadsheet Local Authorities Counties LEP Areas xlsx

Download (349.29 KB)

Local Authorities Spreadsheet xlsx

Download (296.08 KB)

Counties spreadsheet xlsx

Download (57.83 KB)

LEP Spreadsheet xlsx

Download (38.45 KB)

A combined spreadsheet has been produced for Local Authorities including data from both the GBTS survey (domestic overnight trips) and the GBDVS survey (day visits) to create a combined total of all domestic trips to Local Authorities.

Local Authorities combined analysis xlsx

Download (84.51 KB)

GBTS 2015 monthly results

Headline volume and spend (2014 vs 2015): Annual 2015 results Monthly results from the latest GBTS are below:

Detailed results for 2015 are also available in Powerpoint:

Trips to different parts of England in 2015

Each quarter we published GBTS results for the nine regions of England, covering the volume and value of domestic overnight trips to different parts of England. These included quarterly, year-to-date and past 12-month figures.

For results from 2000 – 2014, please contact us at [email protected].

More information

The Methods and Performance Report provides details of methods, samples and a questionnaire:

Methods and Performance Report 2016

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Methods and Performance Report 2017

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Methods and Performance Report 2019

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Official Statistics and Partners

The Great Britain Tourism Survey (GBTS) is a national consumer survey, produced in adherence with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics (2022) – as established by the Office for Statistics Regulation. VisitEngland jointly sponsors the survey with our partners VisitScotland and Visit Wales. The GBDVS also adheres to these principles and is jointly sponsored.

More on tourism in England

The most up-to-date GBTS data is on the latest data page. Further analysis of the GBTS data, including regions, counties, towns and cities is available on our destination-specific research pages.

For more facts and figures about tourism in England, explore our latest intelligence on domestic day visits, accommodation occupancy and visitor attractions, or find information about inbound tourism statistics.

Our domestic sentiment tracker is another tracking survey we run to understand domestic intent for short breaks and holidays within the UK and abroad.