As previously announced on 23 March 2018, discontinuities may have arisen in the amount of money overseas visitors have spent in the UK and the amount of money UK citizens have spent overseas. This is due to the new digital collection method for the International Passenger Survey that improves our ability to interact with passengers and provides improved data quality. The new digital collection was phased in between September 2017 and April 2018.
We have delayed publication of Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2018 Overseas travel and tourism data while we work with external academic experts to quality-assure the datasets to investigate these potential expenditure discontinuities and ensure we can publish a consistent time series. We have no evidence that any other elements of the survey have been affected.
Monthly travel and tourism data for January to March and the full Quarter 1 2018 statistical bulletin will be published on 2 August 2018, with the monthly publication for April 2018 following on 16 August. The 2017 annual Travel trends publication will go ahead on 20 July as previously planned.
For more information, please contact: socialsurveys@ons.gov.uk