London welcomes record 14 million international tourists

UK's capital city welcomed a record of 14 million international tourists in the first nine months of last year, putting London on course for another bumper tourism year, according to a new survey released on Friday.

From July to September 2016 there were 5.2 million overseas visits to the city, a decrease of 0.8 per cent when compared to the same period in 2015 but the second highest summer period on record, new figures issued by International Passenger Survey (IPS) said.

Last summer visitors flocked to the opening of Buckingham Palace, David Hockney at the Royal Academy and Prudential RideLondon, which saw over 25,000 amateur and professional cyclists take to the closed roads of the capital and Surrey.

The River Thames was also a focal point. To commemorate the 350th anniversary of the great fire of London a 100ft wooden replica of the city in 1666 was set alight, the IPS said.

And 'Floating Dreams' by South Korean Artist Ik-Joong Kang, was another major installation on the river, as part of the 2016 Totally Thames Festival, which was enjoyed by over 2.2 million people, it said.

Separate analysis from Forward Keys, a company that predicts the number of overseas travel agent bookings to London, forecasts that in the first three months of 2017 bookings from American tourists will go up 25 per cent and

up 40 per cent from China, when compared to the same period in 2016.