India remains UK’s third top tourism market: Study

INDIA has ranked as the third top long-haul inbound tourism market for the UK after the US and Australia, a latest study showed.

The top three positions in the list have remained unchanged over the past five years.

The study for world travel market, undertaken by ForwardKeys, a travel analytics firm, has produced rankings of the top long-haul inbound tourism markets for the UK.

The study also examines how they have evolved over the past year and the last five years.

Its first ranking identifies the top 30 countries and the second, the top 50 cities.

The rankings are based on flight bookings to the UK for the moving year, from October 1 to September 30.

During the past year, Bangladesh has made it into the top 30, replacing Chile.

Impressive growth has been made by several markets, including Bangladesh (32.5 per cent), China (19.8 per cent) and Taiwan (16 per cent).

Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys, said: “There are some general principles that explain why origin markets become stronger or weaker, including performance of the local economy, currency fluctuations, airline competition and major events.

“However, if there is one trend in the data that I find particularly interesting, it is the rise of second tier cities, and it is most marked in the two leading outbound travel markets, the USA, where 16 cities feature in the top 50 list and China, where growth for the country exceeds the growth of its two biggest cities.”

When it comes to cities, the most notable risers during the past year are Abuja, Delhi, Miami, and Seattle, all of which have climbed four or more places up the ranking.

       (Table Source: ForwardKeys).