Results released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that 22.4 million visits were made between the third quarter (Q3) of July and September 2015.

The increase was largely thanks to the leisure travel industry with 15.7 million visits being made, an 8% increase year-on-year.

However, despite its size the holiday market was outperformed by both the friends and family market which grew by 12.6% and the business travel sector which grew by 10.3%.

In total, UK residents spent 268.9 million nights abroad during the Q3 period.

North America saw the biggest growth in visitor numbers following a year-on-year increase of 14.7% to 1.4 million as the number of nights spent there grew by 18%

Visits to “other countries” grew by 9.6% with an increase of nights spent there of 17%. The number of visitors to Europe grew by 8.6% with the number of room nights up by 11.5%

UK residents spent £14.4 billion during visits abroad in Q3 2015, an increase of 13.6% compared with £12.7 billion spent in the same period of 2014.

Expenditure in Europe rose by 14.3% and spending in North America increased by 25.9% reflecting the increase in visits to North America.