The statistics illustrate the number of foreign travellers who came to England for three different purposes from 1989 to 2009.
Overall, what is notable from the chart is that the number of visitors for all purposes witnessed an upward trend. Among all the purposes, they tended to come for holiday for the most entire surveyed period, with the exception of 2004, when this purpose was replaced by business.
In 1989, with about 6.5 million, travellers went to The UK for holiday the most. Slightly below was business, with the figure for visitors who came to England for this purpose was 5 million. Additionally, at the bottom of the list was the purpose of meeting friends and relatives, at around 3.5 million.
Thereafter, there was an increase to 9 million in the number of travellers who came to The UK for holiday in 1994, before it underwent a noticeable drop to approximately 6.5 million in 2004 and a rise to 9 million in 2009. Meanwhile, the number of business visitors hit a bottom of nearly 4 million in 1994 and reached a peak of 8 million in 2004 and ranked first, followed by a modest decrease to 7 million in 2009. Finally, the number of visitors for meeting friends and relatives peaked at nearly 7 million, and then there was a slight drop to just over 6 million.