The tourism deficit - a £47 billion loss: good for the UK, good for business?
- Mar 23
- 1 min read
Office for National Statistics figures show that flying dominates the market for UK residents travelling abroad and for visitors coming to the UK with well over 80% of the market share in both cases.
UK residents travelling abroad by air in 2024 totalled 80.5 million outbound vs 32.5 million inbound visitors. The UK outbound total is 2.5 times greater than for visitors to the UK. All of which shows why and how aviation, leisure aviation in particular, is helping to drain money and local spending from the UK.
So, more figures from the ONS:
Overseas residents made an estimated 42.6 million visits to the UK in 2024 and spent an estimated £32.5 billion here.
UK residents made an estimated 94.6 million visits abroad in 2024 and spent an estimated £78.6 billion in other countries
That’s a difference, in 2024, £47 billion more spent abroad by UK travellers versus visitors to the UK, a huge hole in the UK economy and most of this, probably over 80%, is spent by people going on holiday.
Newcastle airport is primarily a leisure facility with aircraft flying over 80% of passengers to holiday and other leisure destinations. So, is Newcastle Airport as good for the region's economy as it claims to be?