International Passenger Survey: Quarter 1, 2020

The <i>International Passenger Survey</i> (IPS) aims to collect data on both credits and debits for the travel account of the Balance of Payments, provide detailed visit information on overseas visitors to the United Kingdom (UK) for tourism policy, and collect data on international migration.<br>
<p><strong>International Passenger Survey and COVID-19</strong><br>The Office for National Statistics notes that International Passenger Survey (IPS) interviewing was suspended on 16 March 2020 because of the coronavirus (COVID-19). It is not certain when it will resume.</p><p>Travel and tourism estimates for Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2020 have been published to make the best possible use of the available data. The ONS expect that publishable estimates for March 2020 can be produced using the data collected up to 16 March 2020. The data available from UKDS covers Quarter 1 2020 with four subject areas, termed 'Airmiles', 'Alcohol', 'Qregtown' and 'Qcontact'. These files can be joined together using the variables YEAR, SERIAL, FLOW and QUARTER.</p><p>No IPS data will be collected for the period when the survey is not operational, and the usual travel and tourism outputs from the IPS will not be published for this period. However, the IPS team will publish information to help users to understand trends in total international travel, based on the available administrative data from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Department for Transport (DfT). This will provide figures on numbers of international journeys arriving into and departing from the UK, but there will be no information about the characteristics of these passengers.</p><p>

</p><p>Further information can be found on the ONS <a title="Travel Trends" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/leisureandtourism/articles/traveltrends/2019">Travel Trends</a> webpage.</p>