US welcomes 4.1m visitors in April

Government figures have shown that the United States welcomed some 4.1 million international visitors in April this year.

This was an increase of two per cent on April 2007, while visitation for the first four months of the year was 12 per cent higher than the corresponding period of 2007, reports Travel Daily News.

Travellers from the UK appeared to be as in love with America as ever before, with an 11 per cent increase in visitor numbers meaning that UK tourists accounted for 40 per cent of all arrivals from western Europe.

The current weakness of the dollar was an important incentive for visitors in April, with spending by tourists reaching a record $11.6 billion (£5.8 billion) during the month.

A massive $45.3 billion was spent by international visitors to the States in the first four months of the year – 23 per cent more than in 2007.

In the 2008 Travel and Leisure readers' awards, New York was voted North America and Canada's most popular city, followed by San Francisco and Chicago.