The line chart illustrates the number of foreign travellers, in millions, who visited the UK for the reasons of holiday, business, or meeting friends or relatives, during the period of 20 years starting in 1989.
Overall, despite various fluctuations, there was an increasing amount of visitors coming to the UK throughout the studied period, with enjoying holiday being the most popular purpose. Additionally, there was no clear change in the popularity of visit reasons between 1989 and 2009, reflecting by the consistently largest number of travellers coming for their holidays, followed by who coming on business, and those visiting their friends or relatives were the smallest.
Regarding the most popular reason for visitors to travel to the UK, around 6.5 million travelers chose to enjoy their holidays in the country in 1989. This number rose sharply to peak at about 9.5 million 1998 before fluctuating heavily in the following years and ending at approximately 9 million in 2009. Regardless of the fluctuation, holiday remained the most popular reason for UK visitors in any year.
As for the remaining visiting purposes, business trips were occupied by about 5.5 million travellers in 1989, which was around 0.75 million higher than those who visit their acquantainces. Nevertheless, the number of business travellers dippen twice throughout the studied period to converge with the friends/relatives visiting trend, at about 4 million in 1992 and 6.5 million in 2004, prior to fluctuating and concluding at 6.5 million in 2009. On the other hand, travellers who visit their acquantainces increased slightly by more than 0.25 million in the first 6 years, then the number rose to a larger extent to climax at around 6.5 million in 2004, before declining gradually to just above 6 million at the end of the period.