Britain witness surge in Gulf visitors

VisitBritain recently hosted its annual GCC travel trade mission in Saudi Arabia. This event was held for the first time and recent figures show that during the first three quarters of 2013, total visits from GCC countries to UK were up by 10% over 2012, whilst spend increased by 11%.

This level of growth resulted in visits and spends for the January to September period touching just over GBP1 billion spent during 452,000 total visits from the six GCC countries – Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

VisitBritain’s GCC trade mission aimed to build on this growth, providing UK suppliers with the opportunity to meet more than sixty travel agents from across Saudi Arabia. The mission was held in Riyadh and Jeddah.

Annique Labuschagne, Manager GCC Markets at VisitBritain said: “Britain is a tourism destination that offers a vast range of attractions suitable for families, honeymooners and young travellers from the GCC. We are delighted to see more and more people from this region choose Britain as their holiday destination.”

VisitBritain has invested heavily in ongoing tactical marketing across the GCC region as part of the GREAT campaign. VisitBritain predicts that by 2020, Saudi Arabia will have the highest projected value percentage growth – 181% – amongst the twenty major and emerging markets in VisitBritain’s tourism strategy. It is also among the top five most high-spending markets for Britain, with an average spend per visit of GBP2,354, whilst overall average for all visitors to Britain is GBP600 per visit.

VisitBritain mission leader and marketing director, Joss Croft, said: “We have ambitious growth targets which we are working tirelessly to achieve from across the GCC region. Our trade missions allow us to facilitate relationships with people who help us sell the best of Britain.”