Key Industry Facts and Figures
Volume and value of tourism trips in the South East for 2010
| Volume | % | Expenditure | % | |
| Domestic overnight trips | 16.3 million | 7% | £2.2 billion | 16% |
| Overseas overnight trips | 4.1 million | 2% | £1.7 billion | 13% |
| Tourism day trips | 199.5 million | 91% | £9.5 billion | 71% |
| Total trips | 220.0 million | 100% | £13.4 billion | 100% |
Tourism GVA (Gross Valued Added)
Tourism is one of the region’s largest industries, generating over £13 billion per annum in terms of visitor expenditure and contributing to 8% of the region's total GVA (equivalent to 14.6 billion).
Employment
The tourism industry provides employment for more than 300,000 people in the South East (around 8% of the region’s total workforce). This represents the same volume of jobs found in the region’s manufacturing sector and more than in the regions construction and transport sectors.
Overnight trips
More than 20 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 just over 4.1 million trips were made by visitors from overerseas.
Domestic visitors spent an average of 2.8 nights on their trip whereas visitors from overseas spent an average of 7 nights.
Despite only accounting for 7% of all trips, domestic overnight trips accounted for 16% of total visitor expenditure. Similarly, trips by overseas visitors accounted for only 2% of total trips but 13% of total trip expenditure. This highlights the low volume, high value nature of overnight trips, which overall accounted for 29% of spend yet only 9% of all trips.
Tourism day trips
Tourism day trips accounted for 91% of all trips and generated 71% of total expenditure in 2010. Despite the relatively high volume (199.5 million trips), lower value nature of this market, the £9.5 billion worth of expenditure is by far the largest contribution to the region’s economy.
