Business travel trips abroad by UK residents went up 2 per cent in 2012 as the sector continued its slow recovery from the financial crisis of 2008.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that total number of business trips overseas last year reached 6.97 million – compared to 6.85 million in 2011 and 6.64 million in 2010.
But the 2012 figure is still 23 per cent lower than the peak year for business visits abroad in 2006 when there were 9.1 million trips made by UK residents.
Business travel is continuing to outperform the outbound leisure market which was down by 2 per cent in 2012 at 36.16 million.
The number of overseas residents coming to the UK for business also grew during 2012 – up by 2 per cent to 7.38 million trips on previous year.
Figures also show that there was only a small dip in business travel to the UK during the Olympics months of July and August last year. There were 1.028 million overseas business visits during the two-month period in 2012 – down by 1.9 per cent or 20,000 visits on the same period in 2011.
UK residents business trips abroad 2002-2012 (in thousands)
2002: 8,073
2003: 7,892 (-2.2 per cent)
2004: 8,140 (+3.1 per cent)
2005: 8,556 (+5.1 per cent)
2006: 9,102 (+6.4 per cent)
2007: 9,018 (-0.9 per cent)
2008: 8,920 (-1.1 per cent)
2009: 6,887 (-22.8 per cent)
2010: 6,639 (-3.6 per cent)
2011: 6,846 (+3.1 per cent)
2012: 6,970 (+2 per cent)
Source: ONS