The Great Britain Tourism Survey (GBTS) is a national consumer survey measuring the volume and value of overnight domestic tourism trips taken by residents of the Great Britain. The Great Britain Tourism Survey was previously known as the United Kingdom Tourism Survey, however, from January 2011 onwards, data about trips taken by Northern Ireland residents is being collected separately by NISRA (Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency) and will no longer be reported as part of a UK-wide survey.

The survey covers trips taken for any purpose, whether for holiday, business, visiting friends and relatives or some other reason.

Interviewing is carried out every week of the year using a face-to-face methodology. Annually, some 100,000 respondents are contacted, and any who have returned from an overnight trip within the past four weeks are asked to describe the details of that trip.

The UKTS has been running since 1989, though the methodology has changed a number of times since then. The current survey methodology started in May 2005, and comparisons with results from earlier years are difficult to make and should be treated with caution.

Results presented from 2011 onwards are based only on residents of Great Britain. Comparisons with previous years using the same geographical coverage are included in monthly and annual deliverables issued for results from January 2010 onwards.

No changes have been made to documents produced from 2005-2010. These consider the whole of the UK, and cannot be directly compared with results from the new Great Britain survey.

The survey is jointly sponsored by the three national tourist boards – VisitEngland, VisitScotland and Visit Wales.

The GB Tourism Survey is an Official Statistic, and is produced in adherence with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics (2009). You can find out more about what this means here

VisitEngland occasionally receives requests for additional data analysis from the GBTS survey. Details of these requests can be found here, and are available on request.