Tourism is on the up again after the horrors of foot-and-mouth - but only just, new figures reveal.

The overseas tourist market is making only a slow recovery, although domestically the picture is a lot better.

The UK received 2.22 m foreign visitors in April 2002 compared with 2.02 million in April 2001, according to the Office for National Statistics.

This took the total number of overseas visits for the first four months of this year to 6,880,000 only very slightly ahead of the 6,876,000 total for January-April 2001.

In Yorkshire, where the tourist industry was devastated by the events of last year, the picture is comparable.

"It is slow in the international market, but domestically we are doing terribly well, with visitor figures approximately the same as those before foot-and-mouth," said a spokesman for the Yorkshire Tourist Board in York.

"But all we need is a horrendously bad summer and things could be disastrous. It's walking a razor edge, as usual."

On the international scene the industry has also suffered heavily in the aftermath of September 11 as well as foot-and-mouth.

"It is still an uphill struggle and we are still marketing abroad although we have been concentrating ion the domestic market," said the spokesman.

The Office of National Statistics also revealed that in the 12 months ending April 20, overseas visitors spent £10.615 billion in the UK against a figure of £12.597 billion in the 12 months ending April 2001.

The figures also showed that UK residents made 4.9 million trips abroad in April 2002 compared with 4.57 million in April 2001. In the first four months of this year UK residents made 16.01 million trips overseas compared with 15.81 million in January-April 2001.

In the 12 months ending April 2002, UK residents spent £25.61 billion on overseas trips compared with £25.02 billion in the 12 months ending April 2001.