It might have been named as one of Britain’s worst places to live – but tourists seemingly love Crawley.
That is according to Government data showing the West Sussex town is one of the most popular places visited by foreign travellers.
It ranked 15th on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) list of destinations.
That put it above Nottingham (16th), Robin Hood’s homeland, and Aberdeen (17th), repeatedly a winner of the ‘Beautiful Scotland’ award.
Crawley, which derives from the Anglo Saxon word ‘crawe leah’, meaning ‘a crow-infested clearing’, also beat out Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Reading and world-famous pilgrimage destination Canterbury.
The results could be explained by Crawley being home to Gatwick Airport, a major international terminal used by millions of passengers.
Crawley ranked 20th in a list of the worst places to live by a national newspaper.
It sparked a staunch defence by The Argus, a local publisher in the Brighton region, who said it was a ‘great place to live’.
The ONS report, scored on the number of overnight visits made, excluded London.
It said the capital attracted 20.3million overnight visits in 2023.
Edinburgh, which topped its list, had 2.3m visits, according to the huge survey, based on answers from hundreds of thousands of interviewees.
Manchester (1.7m) came in second and Birmingham (934,000) third.
Liverpool (900,000) and Glasgow (685,000) rounded out the top five.
Foreign residents made 38m visits to the UK in 2023, up from 31.2m in 2022.
Spending also increased, leaping from £26.5bn in 2022 to £31.1bn.
And, while visitor numbers remain lower than pre-pandemic levels, tourists visiting Britain spent more money than in 2019.
But plans for a ‘hotel tax’ under Chancellor Rachel Reeves could see holidaymakers face an additional £12-a-night in future.
Treasury officials are understood to have carried out ‘modelling exercises’ to work out the impact of introducing a similar levy as one applied in France.
Across the Channel, nightly accommodation charges range from less than a pound per person per night at a campsite to up more than £12 in a five-star hotel.
Several councils, including Manchester, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, have already introduced a so-called visitor charge which hotels can itemise on guest bills.
A report in April last year estimated the charge had raised £2.8m for Manchester alone in its first year.
The Chancellor’s proposal for a widespread approach across the nation has been met with staunch opposition from international brands such as Burberry and Rolex-seller Watches of Switzerland to Heathrow and hotelier Sir Rocco Forte.
London lobby group BusinessLDN also called on Labour to ‘prioritise growth-enhancing’ policies.
But calculations by economic campaign group TaxPayers’ Alliance found adopting a £1.25 charge per night would raise around £560m per year.
York, which ranked just above Crawley on the list with nine million visitors over 12 months, has already welcomed the idea of a tourist tax for the city to help upkeep sites such as the Roman walls and Shambles shopping area.
Of the ten countries whose residents visited the UK the most frequently in 2023, seven were EU countries.
The three non-EU countries were the US, Australia and Canada.
As in 2022, the US topped the table for foreign visitors in 2023, with 5.1m.
The US was followed by France (3.2m), Germany (3m) and Ireland (2.9m).
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