Market Intelligence

Welcome to TSE's Market Intelligence page. Here you will find the following latest regional and national information on the performance of the tourism industry.

If you would like more information please contact the Market Intelligence Team

Key Tourism Facts and Figures

The following facts and figures are for 2008 and based on data gathered from a number of regional and national surveys. These include surveys which track industry performance, which monitor visitor trends, and which review current economic and labour market conditions.

Volume and value of tourism trips in the South East for 2008

	Volume	%	Expenditure	%
Domestic overnight trips	16.3 million	8%	£2.4 billion	22%
Inbound overnight trips	4.5 million	2%	£1.8 billion	17%
Tourism day trips	180 million	90%	£6.3 billion	60%
Total trips	200.8 million	100%	£10.5 billion	100%

Visitor Expenditure

Tourism is one of the region’s largest industries, generating over £10.5 billion per annum in terms of visitor expenditure. This is equivalent to approximately 5% of regional Gross Value Added (GVA).

Employment

The tourism industry provides employment for more than 302,000 people (around 7% of the region’s total workforce).

Volume and Value of overnight trips

Just under 21 million people visited destinations across the South East on an overnight trip. The vast majority (16.3 million) of these were made by UK nationals while around a fifth (4.5 million) were made by international visitors.

Despite only accounting for 8% of all trips, domestic overnight trips accounted for 22% of total visitor expenditure. Similarly, inbound overnight trips were deemed to account for only 2% of total trips but 17% of total trip expenditure. This highlights the low volume, high value nature of overnight trips, which overall accounted for 39% of spend yet only 10% of trips.

Volume and value of day trips

The same-day market is significantly larger than the overnight market with around 190 million tourism day trips made to destinations in the South East. Tourism day trips accounted for 90% of all trips and generated 60% of total expenditure. Despite the relatively high volume, lower value nature of this market, the £6.3 billion worth of expenditure represents sizeable income for the region’s economy.

Reason for visit

The largest proportion (52%) of visits taken in the South East were for a holiday (i.e. visiting purely for pleasure/leisure). A further 25% of all visits were taken to visit friends or relatives, 19% were for business purposes and the the remaining 4% were for 'other' reasons.

For further regional tourism facts please read the Facts of Tourism 2008 leaflet below:

TSE Facts of Tourism 2008