The global economic crisis took a heavy toll on travel to and from Britain last year, figures released on Thursday showed, while the first quarter of 2009 was also gloomy for the tourism industry.
Visits to Britain fell to 31.9 million, down 2.7 percent from 2007 and the first fall since 2001, when the 9/11 attacks and a foot-and-mouth outbreak dented global travel, a report by the Office for National Statistics showed.
The decline persisted into the first quarter of this year, the statistics office said, suggesting tough times ahead for holiday companies, airlines and the hotel industry.
Visits by Britons abroad also dropped in 2008, marking the first decline in two-way travel — both from Britain and to it — since the Gulf War in 1991.
"Undoubtedly the economic downturn has had an impact," said David Savage, manager of the International Passanger Survey, which covers 90 percent of visits to and from Britain.
In the first quarter of this year, visits by British residents abroad fell by 21 percent year-on-year, following a 9 percent fall in the last quarter of 2008.
The decline was driven in part by a drop in the number of holidays being sold, the compilers of the survey said, with a downturn in winter destinations such as Switzerland and Austria.
SPENDING BOOM
Visits by travellers from the United States, where the credit crisis led to the collapse of major banking giants such as Lehman Brothers, fell sharply, pushing Americans to third from first in the ranking of top visitors to Britain.
"The fall from the U.S. has been going on for the past couple of years. It could be the economy hitting them earlier than us," said Savage.
The decline takes U.S. visits back to 2001 levels.
But despite the falls in the number of visits, a favorable foreign exchange rate boosted total spending, both in Britain and by Britons travelling abroad, the survey showed.
Foreign visitors to Britain spent 16.3 billion pounds in 2008, while spending by Britons abroad rose to 36.8 billion pounds, reaching record levels.
"People will come here with a budget and when you look at the currency, their budget increases," said Savage.
Sterling <GBP=> <GBPEUR=> lost 25 percent against the dollar and 30 percent against the euro in 2008.
On the bright side, the survey showed that visits from France and Ireland — the number one and two ranked countries for visitors respectively — continued to increase in 2008.
Britain is the sixth most visited country in the world, according to the World Tourism Organisation, with France, Spain, the United States, China and Italy filling the top spots.
