The figures showed that there were 45.6 million international holidays taken by UK residents last year, as the ONS noted a return to a “more usual pattern” of overseas visits with the peak month for travel abroad taking place during the school holiday month of August.
Holidays were the top reason for overseas travel, with a total spend of £40.2 billion in 2022 – marking another return towards normal travel patterns after visiting friends and relatives (VFR) became the main reason for travel during the Covid period.
Total overseas visits by UK residents recovered to 71 million in 2022, after only reaching 19.1 million in 2021 and 23.8 million in 2020 when travel was decimated by the pandemic and tight travel restrictions. The number of trips from the UK was still 24% lower than in 2019 when were 93.1 million visits overseas.
The leisure market recovered much more quickly than international corporate travel with just 4.8 million business trips from the UK in 2022, which was 46% down compared with 2019’s figures.
Europe was the most popular destination in 2022 accounting for 79% or 56.1 million of all overseas trips with Spain easily on top with 15.6 million visits, thanks to its strength as a holiday destination. Despite Spain’s strong rebound, its total number of visitors from the UK was still down by 14% on 2019.
France was in second place with 7.4 million trips last year followed by Italy (3.99 million) and Greece (3.7 million), while North America was the top long-haul destination with 4 million trips, including 3.4 million visits to the US which still dropped from fourth place in 2019 to sixth position in 2022, due to continuing Covid travel restrictions.
The ONS figures show that UK residents spent more on average per trip in 2022 than they did pre-Covid – they splashed out an average of £823 per visit last year, compared with just £670 in 2019.
The average number of days per trip was 11 nights in 2022, which was higher than 2019’s average of 10 nights, while average daily spending also went up from £69 to £75 over the same period.
Total spending on overseas travel by UK residents reached £58.5 billion in 2022, which was only a 6% drop compared with 2019’s figure of £62.3 billion as the price of international holidays and travel increased compared with the pre-Covid period.
The number of overseas residents visiting the UK during 2022 reached 31.2 million, including 12.1 million holidaymakers, in 2022. This was an increase from just 6.4 million total visits in 2021 but still 24% lower than 2019’s figure of 40.9 million trips.
