Inbound tourism figures for the first two months of 2005 have given a solid start to the new year with 4 million visits made to the UK by overseas residents – an eleven per cent increase on January and February 2004 – VisitBritain said last Friday.

The increases in spending and visits follow a record-breaking year in 2004 when nearly 28 million international visitors spent £13 billion in the UK.

During January and February, the fastest growth rates came from markets outside of Western Europe and North America.

Visits from the Rest of World region are up 17 per cent on 2004 (780,000), while Western European visits rose 13 per cent to 2.7 million.

The provisional data also indicates that the £1.6 billion spent by overseas visitors in the first two months of the year is up 11 per cent on 2004.

Tom Wright, VisitBritain chief executive, said:

“This is a very positive start to the new year and good news for Britain’s tourism industry as we continue to grow the value of the industry towards £100 billion by 2010. However, changing patterns in the landscape of global tourism mean that there is growing potential for increasing visits and spending from developing markets in Eastern Europe, South-East Asia and China, as well as continuing to support traditional ones such as France, Germany and Ireland.” *

VisitBritain is increasing its focus and investment in new and developing ‘growth’ markets to the benefit of all parts of Britain.

Travel trade, media and PR strategies, coupled to website development and contact centre activities in the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Malaysia and Thailand, follow similar activity already undertaken in China, Poland, Russia and South Korea.

Since April 2005, Scotland, Wales, London and England have been taking more of a lead in marketing their respective destinations in France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands.

VisitBritain will continue to offer a range of core services through its offices in these countries and the national tourist boards will be able to add value to the delivery of their marketing activities through a menu of additional services.

VisitBritain’s England Marketing division will co-ordinate and lead the marketing of England in these international markets, working in close partnership with the English regions and destinations.