Surge in visitors from the Far East delivers positive growth for hotels

15 February 2019 by
Surge in visitors from the Far East delivers positive growth for hotels

A surge of international visitors, particularly from Eastern Asia, brought positive growth for hotels in 2018, data from Expedia Group has shown.

Major cities and regions across the UK saw double-digit group through the year.

Visitors from the Far East were a major contributor to this with Chinese travellers to the UK increasing by almost 160% year-on-year. Visitors from Japan increased by 30%, from Malaysia by 45%, Korea 20% and Thailand 30%.

Traditionally strong markets such as Germany, Canada, Australia and France remained buoyant while Italy, Ireland and Spain saw double-digit year-on-year increases in the number of tourists heading to the UK.

There was also notable growth in the number of visitors from South America, particularly Brazil and Argentina.

The result was 15% increase in visitor numbers to London, Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff year-on-year.

Both Edinburgh and Glasgow saw a 10% uptick, with Edinburgh holding its spot as the second most popular destination for tourists visiting the UK after London.

Meanwhile Essex, East Anglia, the West Midlands, North Wales, the Lake District and Cumbria saw the biggest regional increases in tourist numbers.

Irene Roberts, director of market management, for Expedia Group: "The significant rise in demand from valuable Far East visitors is great news for hoteliers - lengthier booking windows and increased on-property spend enable them to focus their time on maximising bookings during shoulder periods. Our proposition of providing hotel partners with a global reach through continued investment in technology and marketing is helping capture those visitors and drive conversions."

Hotels see double digit spike in demand for first nine months of 2018>>

Get The Caterer every week on your smartphone, tablet, or even in good old-fashioned hard copy (or all three!).
The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking