The line graph illustrates how many foreign tourists visited the UK for three reasons from 1989 to 2009.
Overall, the number of overseas visitors to the UK grew during the period. While the numbers for holidays and business experienced a modest increase, the figure for those visiting friends or relatives also showed an upward trend. Additionally, the majority of visitors chose to travel for vacations, making it the most popular reason for visiting the UK over the period.
In 1989, over 6 million people traveled to the UK for holiday trips, making it the most common reason for visiting. At the same time, business purposes for coming to the UK ranked as the second most popular, with nearly 6 million travelers reported. Recording friends and family reasons, not many people visited the country for these, as the figure for this was only under 4 million in the initial year of this period.
During the period from 1994 to 1999, the number of people who were on vacation in the UK increased dramatically and reached a peak of nearly 10 million visitors. However, it saw a rapid drop to under 8 million tourists in 2004 before rising back to around 9 million in 2009, remaining the highest number in this time frame. The number of people traveling to the UK for business trips decreased moderately and hit the lowest point of around 4 million visitors from 1990 to 1994 after which it had been witnessed an upward trend to 8 million people for over 10 years from 1994. Despite this significant increase, the figure for business dropped marginally to around 7 million tourists in 2009. Between 1994 and 2004, a considerable rise to nearly 7 million visitors coming to the country for social and family purposes was shown. But the figure for this declined slightly to 6 million people in 2009.