The line chart illustrates how many foreign visitors came to the UK for different purposes from 1989 to 2009
Overall, there were upward trends in the number of people who came to the UK in the 20 year-period. Notably, people who came to this nation for holiday reasons were most popular.
In 1989, the number of overseas visitors came to the UK for holiday purposes stood at almost 6.5 million people, which was the highest figure among all categories. This was followed by the figure for business reasons at 5.5 million visitors, which was 2 million people more than that of those that visit friends or relatives.
Thereafter, those who came to the UK for holiday increased remarkably to 9 million in 2009 after reaching the highest point at 9.5 million people in 1998 and dropping to 7.5 million in 2004. Similarly, the figure for business purposes witnessed a slight rise to 7 million people at the end of the period, after which a decrease to 4 million was recorded in 1992. Otherwise, a gradual growth to 7 million people was seen in the number of visitors who visited their relatives before declining to 6 million in 2009.