Britons’ Summer Foreign Travel Slumps 17% on Pound Weakness

By Svenja O’Donnell

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The number of Britons who took summer vacations abroad slumped this year as the weakness of the pound and the worst recession in a generation encouraged people to stay at home.

The number of people who traveled overseas in the three months through August dropped 17 percent from a year earlier to 14.6 million, the Office for National Statistics said in an e- mailed statement today. In August, the number of people who went abroad fell an annual 16 percent to 4.9 million.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown shunned foreign travel this summer, choosing to spend his vacation in Scotland. The pound has lost about 15 percent against the euro and 6 percent against the dollar in the past year, prompting people to seek out vacation alternatives in Britain.

“With the pound having weakened that much, holiday makers may well have baulked at the extra cost of going abroad,” said James Knightley, an economist at ING Financial Markets in London. “In that sort of environment, U.K. holidays are looking a much more attractive bet. With sterling remaining weak, people may well choose to continue to spend more time in Britain.”

Britons staying at home braved a wetter-than-normal summer this year as July recorded the most rainfall in England and Wales since records began in 1914, according to the Met Office, the government’s weather agency.

The pound’s weakness wasn’t enough to lure more foreign visitors to Britain. The number of overseas visitors dropped 5 percent in the three months through August from a year earlier to 7.7 million.

To contact the reporter on this story: Svenja O’Donnell in London at sodonnell@bloomberg.net.