Number of overseas visitors to UK halved in March on coronavirus fears
The number of overseas people to travel to the UK halved in March, the Office of National Statistics said today, as the coronavirus pandemic began to hammer international transport.
As the ONS stopped collecting travel data on 16 March due to the pandemic, it said that the figures were based on assumptions of data collected up to that point.
It added that the number of UK citizens going abroad on holiday and for other reasons fell a similar amount, based on the same estimates.
If the figures for the first half of March were reflected in the second half, there would have been 1.4m travellers to the UK in the month, 54 per cent fewer than the year before.
Likewise, under the same logic the number of Brits travelling overseas would have fallen 50 per cent to 3.2m.
However, the body stressed that it was very much an estimate, and as it had no way to test the assumptions it did not meet its normal standards of accuracy.
The ONS also said that aviation data for the months of March and April showed air traffic over the two months was just three per cent of normal levels.
Over the quarter as a whole, there were 7m visits to the UK, down 16 per cent on 2019’s figures.
And between January and March UK holidaymaker numbers fell nearly a quarter to 13.9m as fears over the pandemic gripped travellers.
In March, the US and EU imposed stringent travel bans, with the UK going into lockdown a week later.
In June, the UK imposed strict quarantine rules on all incoming travellers, before relaxing them at the beginning of July for a select list of 60 countries.
The next review of the exempt countries in expected next week.