Following on from last month's data from the UNWTO that worldwide international tourism fell by 8% in the first quarter of this year, much hope here in the UK has been put into the idea that British tourists will holiday in the UK this year rather than going abroad.

VisitBritain has just this week released statisics for domestic tourism in the UK here. The main results are that domestic tourism is down 13.6% (trips) and 14.5% (spending) in the first quarter.

Of course, this doesn't necesarily mean that trips will be down over the summer, as just possibly (so the industry hopes) tourists are taking fewer foreign trips and second trips and concentrating their spending on one big domestic holiday over the summer. We will have to wait and see...