Britain continues to be a favourite for Canadians with visitors from this country surpassing pre-pandemic travel levels in 2022, according to the latest figures from VisitBritain.

Canadians topped by arrivals and spend figures last year, with the former increasing 3% to 897,000 arrivals over 2019, and the latter registering a record-breaking £934 million ($1.57 billion), a whopping +27% up on 2019, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The average length of stay for inbound Canadian travellers grew by two nights in 2022, to 11 nights, three nights higher than the global average of eight nights.

Meanwhile, spend per visit increased by almost a quarter, from £840 ($1,411) per trip in 2019 to £1,042 ($1,750) in 2022 and this growth was recorded across all trip purposes.

Meanwhile, travel intentions saw VFR overtake holiday visits to become the most popular trip purpose for UK, representing 47% of trips, while holidays sat in second place with 37%.

• VFR set a record for visits (+22%), spend (+64%) and total nights in the UK (+43%).

• Holiday trios reached 90% of 2019 volumes, while business trips were further behind at 80% of pre-pandemic volumes.

The Canadian market also saw an impressive movement up Britain’s top market rankings scoreboard in 2022, ascending five spots in both volume and value to sit within the top 10 key source markets. Canada currently represents the 9th largest and 7th largest most valuable market to the UK.

‘We are thrilled to see this strong post-pandemic recovery from the Canadian market, demonstrating that Britain remains a favourite destination for Canadians,” commented VisitBritain’s Executive VP, The Americas Paul Gauger. “With its connections of family and friends, Canadians love to explore the arts and culture, food & drink and heritage of the UK. (And) with the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, plus our ‘Come See Britain Differently’ campaign, these have further encouraged Canadians to follow their passions and explore beyond Britain’s famous landmarks to experience a more unexpected side of Britain.”

Globally, in 2022, the UK welcomed 31.2 million visits following two years of low visits due to the impact of COVID-19. Visits in each quarter of 2022 increasingly neared pre-pandemic levels and overall visits were 24% below 2019 levels.

VisitBritain’s latest forecast projects that this year Britain will welcome 35.1 million inbound visitors (-14% on 2019 and +18% higher than 2022) spending £29.5 billion (+4% on 2019 and +14% higher than 2022).