VisitBritain - quoting provisional figures from the 2013 International Passenger Survey (Office of National Statistics) - says that October was a record-breaking month for tourism visits and spend, with Britain welcoming increased visits from all regions of the world .

Unusually for an October, growth was seen from all the world regions - EU15, Other EU, Rest of Europe, North America and Rest of World - with North America returning to growth at 9 per cent up on October last year.

The high volume EU15 markets were up five per cent, while visits from other EU markets saw a marked 40 per cent increase.

Tourism spend is shown to be growing at a faster rate than the volume of visits, putting Britain on track for the highest spend from international visitors in its history by the end of the year.

The UK welcomed 10 per cent more visits than in October 2012 - a total of 2.95 million - and almost a quarter more (in nominal terms) was spent by overseas visitors, a total of £1.88bn.

The figures have also put holiday visits on track for a record year, marking six consecutive months of record levels of holiday visits, with nine per cent more holiday visits from overseas in October this year than the previous October.

So far in 2013 (January to October) there have been eight per cent more holiday visits than in the same period in 2012 , which VisitBritain says is - again - a record number.

Other figures show Rest of Europe visits having increased by 13 per cent and new growth markets across Rest of World markets (outside Europe or North America) continuing to break records for the seventh consecutive month, with visits up nine per cent in October and 12 per cent across the first ten months of the year.

As a result, visits from Rest of World and Rest of Europe are both likely to set new records by the end of this year.