I haven't looked at the data but I imagine foreign tourists mostly go to London and a few venture out to nearby hotspots. People within the UK seem to be branching out to every half-beauty spot we have in every corner of the Isles.
Sample of 1 but my last 3 vacations in the UK have skipped London.
My impression is anybody visiting for more than a week will likely do a few days in London then move on to someplace else (of my friends, that’s usually Scotland for camping/hiking).
Clearly you have never been to Oxford, Bath, York, Edinburgh, Lake District, Cornwall etc etc which are teeming with visitors from the US, China, Japan and many other countries during the summer...
I've been to most of them but teeming isn't a word I'd really use. They're also the most obvious hotspots outside London, I was mostly attempting to make a point about all the 2nd-tier and 3rd-tier locations that are currently very busy with UK staycationers.
We did the North Coast 500 this year (we live in NE Scotland, but obviously aren't going to get anywhere further afield for now!), and it was really difficult to find accommodation because so much was fully booked.
This is a very interesting topic and I feel very hard to make ends of.
For example, you can compare local money (brits spending money in UK) vs foreign money (foreigners coming to UK for holidays) and get a part of the picture. On the other hand, local money are going to be spent in smaller towns, but the foreign money mostly go to large centres, London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow etc. Then there are the amounts involved, 500gbp in London will buy say, a weekend for a couple, therefore employing not really that many people (cook, bartender, server, cleaner etc). The same amount will buy a weekend on the east coast for quite a few more people, therefore requiring more support personnel (hence, more jobs).