But did you know that when they are here, overseas visitors spend more than double per visit (an average of £560) compared with their domestic overnight counterparts (an average of £210 per trip)? 

[quote=Bernard Donoghue, Association of Leading Visitor Attractions]“The economic contribution which heritage makes to local, regional and national economies is, as these figures reveal, hugely significant.”[/quote]

In fact, overseas visitor spend on heritage trips totalled £7.4bn in 2015 - 42 per cent of the total £17.5bn spend made by visitors to heritage attractions, which also included domestic overnight visitors (£4.7bn/27 per cent) and day trippers  (£5.3bn/31 per cent).

These statistics are from The Impact of Heritage Tourism for the UK Economy 2016, HLF’s new report published today. It is the second follow-up to Investing in Success, HLF’s original report on heritage tourism published in 2010 in partnership with VisitBritain.

The three reports analyse the impact of the heritage-based visitor economy and highlight the importance of continued investment from leisure, culture and heritage budgets in supporting UK tourism.

Other results from the research, which was produced by Oxford Economics on our behalf, show that:

• Heritage tourism is a vital part of the UK economy. In 2015, domestic and international tourists made 192m trips to visit the UK’s cultural, historic and natural heritage assets
• The heritage tourism sector generated an £20.2bn gross value added (GVA) contribution to UK Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 386,000 jobs

Bernard Donoghue, Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA), said “The economic contribution which heritage makes to local, regional and national economies is, as these figures reveal, hugely significant. Our heritage is a rich, valuable, ever-delivering asset. Our living heritage is rightly valued for its cultural, educational, aesthetic and historical importance but we can now also clearly see that it is an economic driver for inbound tourism to the UK, as well as sustaining domestic tourism too.”

For more stats you can read the report on our Research page.