Birmingham overtakes Glasgow in top 10 most-visited

Birmingham has overtaken Glasgow, while Cardiff nudges ahead of Brighton and Hove, in the annual tables ranking UK towns by the number of visits by overseas residents.

The figures, published today in the ONS report Travel Trends, reveal that Birmingham received 763,000 overnight visits in 2008, while Glasgow moved into fifth place with 629,000. Cardiff, with 342,000 visits, took tenth place, slightly ahead of Brighton and Hove which received 331,000.

Once again London hosted more overnight stays by overseas residents during 2008 than any other city or region of the UK, while the rest of the top 10 stayed much the same as in 2007, with Edinburgh and Manchester completing the top five.

Winchester, Perth, Stirling and Ipswich all enter the top 50 most-visited towns this year, at the expense of Oban, Bedford, Swansea and St Albans. Dover saw the greatest increase in the number of visits, with 117,000 visits compared with 84,000 in 2007. Northampton saw the largest decrease in visits, down from 118,000 visits to 101,000.

From the top 50 most visited towns and cities, overseas visitors stayed longest in Bradford, averaging 19 days per visit, and Bournemouth and Exeter, both with 13. Dover had the shortest average stay, with two nights.

Visitors to St. Andrews spent the most on average, both in terms of spend per visit and per day, at £841 and £147 respectively.