Mike Hodgkinson: "Disease hit passenger numbers"

Poor weather has been blamed for accelerating that trend last year.

But, thanks to the timing of Easter, tourism numbers this April would probably have risen were it not for "special factors" such as the foot-and-mouth epidemic, the ONS said.

"The number of visits by overseas residents in April was about 20% lower than might have been predicted," Friday's report said.

Mr Lovegrove said: "It looked as though numbers were recovering a little until March, and then the steep decline in April."

The findings reflect reports from individual firms, such as BAA, the UK's top-ranking airports operator, which on Monday warned that foot-and-mouth would "continue to have an impact for the next few months".

"The disease... undoubtedly reduced passenger traffic growth in March and April as in-bound tourists delayed or cancelled visits to the UK," BAA chief executive Mike Hodgkinson said.

Continental effect

Analysis of unadjusted ONS data, which the office warned must be treated with caution, indicates that the number of Western European tourists to Britain has shown the greatest decline, falling 30% in April compared with the same month in 2000.

The number of US tourists was, at 162,000, broadly the same as last April.

The overall number of foreign visitors to the UK, including those on business trips, was, at 2.0 million, less than 5% down on last year, adjusted figures show.