Hopes of a huge revival in foreign tourism in London next year were given a boost on Tuesday by a survey showing the capital ranked the second most popular destination in the world for bookings in 2022.
Analysis from flights and holidays website Opodo showed London behind only Paris pointing to a much needed recovery in tourism after two “lost” summers for the industry since the start of the pandemic.
London was the number one destination in the Nordic countries, second in Germany, third in Spain and fourth in Italy and Portugal. London was also one of the most searched for destinations alongside Paris and New York.
The capital attracted 21.7 million foreign visitors in 2019, making it one of the most popular cities in the world for travellers. They spent a total of £15.7 billion. However, numbers have collapsed by more 90 per cent since the start of the pandemic.
Opodo polled more than 10,000 people in the UK, Europe and the USA. Pablo Caspers, chief travel officer of its parent company eDreams ODIGEO, said: “Since the beginning of 2021 we have seen that the desire to travel has never disappeared - search data shows our customers have continued to dream and plan ahead despite travel restrictions.
“Bookings continued to increase as vaccination programmes progressed, and today, we have really encouraging figures. From June to August our figures have been above pre-Covid levels and during our Prime days in October we experienced record bookings.”
