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Ever wondered where in the world people are booking holiday homes and short term rentals in London. Well, wonder no more. We’ve analysed our booking data for this December to find that out. Our infographic reveals the top ten countries for visitors based on the volume of bookings. We’ve also split our bookings by region and delved into the details to see how much overseas travellers are spending.
By clicking on the infographic below, you can open it in a new page and either download or print it out.
Official overseas visitor numbers
There’s been much debate about the impact of Brexit on inbound visitor numbers to the UK. The latest figures from VisitBritain show a 2% increase in overseas visitors to the UK in July and +1% from January to July. However, there’s been significant, double-digit growth in spending by inbound visitors to the UK at an estimated total of £2.9 billion in July and £7.3 billion in the first seven months of 2019. The VisitBritain data shows some fluctuations in the mix of nationalities with a 2% reduction in visitors from EU markets year-to-date (YTD). However, this is more than offset by a 7% increase YTD in visitors from elsewhere in Europe. Travellers from North America have increased by 9% whereas visits from the rest of the world have reduced by 3% since January 2019.
London short let bookings in December
The analysis of our data shows that there’s no shortage of visitors choosing both London and a holiday rental for their stay. The weak pound gives overseas visitors a favourable exchange rate making London better value and more attractive. Travellers from across Europe account for 34% of City Relay’s December bookings, followed by visitors from North America who represent 21% of reservations. At a country level, it’s US visitors who top the list with almost one in every five bookings made by American customers. At 12.8% of bookings, the UK is second on the list as more Brits are opting for a staycation or plan to visit family and friends over the festive period. Further afield, Australian guests represent 9.7% of London short let stays in December.
Perhaps unsurprisingly the spend (value of bookings) per region mostly follows the same pattern as the volume of reservations. The exception being domestic visitors who stay longer on average at 12.5 nights per booking than other regions. This pushes the UK into second place on the regional spend ranking and first place when you look at the spend per individual country. The USA ranks second on the spend per country list as it has a high volume of bookings with an average length of stay of 6.8 days. France, Spain and Australia are 3rd, 4th and 5th on our list respectively based on spend.
What this means for our hosts
City Relay hosts are experiencing healthy booking volumes with reservations from visitors in 49 countries, from Algeria to Uruguay, this December. As we approach the general election, political uncertainty prevails, but London is continuing to attract visitors in high numbers. And overseas visitors money goes further in this current economic climate, enabling them to stay longer and spend more. December is a good month for renting out your London home as demand over the holiday period drives up the average nightly rate. You can learn more about the average rate per night by London postcode in December in our previous blog post.
If you are interested in earning money by hosting international visitors at your London property, you get an instant estimation of how much you could earn with our quick and simple rent estimation tool. We provide an end-to-end professional property management service from marketing to maintenance. Click the button below, and fill out the short form to find out how much your London property could be earning for you.
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You may also be interested in reading part one and part two of our mini-series on Understanding the London short let market.
