The ONS has just release figures for overseas visitors in England broken down at a County or Unitary Authority level. I have just had a quick play with these to pull out figures for the Core Cities (Not there CA/FUA definitions). These figures are averages from the period 2011-2013.

The following graphic and table show firstly the importance of visits from friends  and family for all cities.

These undoubtedly will however spend less per day than other types of visit. Data is available to look into this.

Otherwise it is interesting to note for Birmingham the importance of business tourism for the city. It has the highest percentage of stays related to business of all the cities analysed – with a figure of just over 20% of nights stayed relating to business.

Unsurprisingly Greater London has the highest percentage of visitors nights for holiday with the figure reaching almost 40%.

The figures on studying show the importance of this reason for travelling for Newcastle and Sheffield where the figures are 33.7% and 25.5% respectively.

Many a happy hour could and should be spent mining this data. Here is the link if you are interested.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-424962