Interesting patterns in the UK tourism business, that was revealed in the course of studying the characteristics air balloon flights.

1. Tourists streams in
the United Kingdom

2. It’s pleasant to be a tourist in the UK. Everything around
you is in English: signs, menus and information. If you
need to find out how to get to some interesting places you
can go to an information point, look on the Internet or just
ask passerby.
But if you’re not a local, you probably will not be able to
get on one of the most unusual and interesting attractions
in the UK: a hot air balloon flight.
A hot air balloon flight is an incredible experience, despite
the restrictions present. We believe that this experience
should be available for everybody.
The aim of this research is to research how hot-air balloon
companies could make their service more accessible.
Adapted from data from the Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open
Government Licence v.1.0 // www.ons.gov.uk

3. Any service is meaningless without consumers. We decided to focus, therefore, on The focus on local customers is now obvious: it is inconvenient and potentially im-
these potential consumers. Some key questions are: who are they, where are they possible for uninformed tourists to even book tickets!
from, how can companies attract their attention and what types of communications
channels should be used. How can we fix this situation? Let’s consider overseas tourists as potential target
customers.
An analysis of the top 20 results on Google showed that hot-air balloon companies
focus on local customers:
§ 90% of sites use booking with vouchers, which are usually sent by Note
post. This system is only convenient for gifting purposes and inconvenient Hot-air balloon companies have enough information about local consumers. They
for tourists interested in the experience. know the geographic and temporal distribution of consumers, their age, gender,
§ All sites are only in English. internet usage, presence in social networks, payment preferences and other charac-
§ Most of the sites require a good knowledge of local geographical names. teristics.
General streams of overseas tourists to the UK
European tourists provide the greatest source of tourism revenue, though US tourists Fig. 2 Residents of the EU in whole tourist’s spendings on visits to the UK
are also important. If we analyse each country individually, we will see that American (2011)
tourists are first place in terms of money spent per capita.
Fig. 1 Top 10 coutries by spending their residents on visits to the UK (2011)
3

4. European tourists deserve special attention, not only because closeness to the UK. Note
But also because they come to the UK more and more often (fig 3). Therefore they Fig. 3 confirm approximate equality between distribution
spend more and more money. Meanwhile, the number of visits and spending Ameri- of money spent by tourists, and frequency of their visits.
can tourists remain approximately at the same level.
Fig. 3 Overseas residents visits to the UK:
Visits per year Earnings at current prices
Main flow of tourists to the UK is from the EU and the USA
4

5. General streams of tourists in the World
China plays a special role in the world tourists flows. Aggregate stream of Chinese stable increase in their travelling expenditures (fig. 5). Stream of tourists from China to
tourists is twice bigger than the flow of American tourists (fig. 4). Despite of the fact UK is barely noticeable today (fig. 1, fig. 3) despite its potential.
that Chinese tourists don’t spend much money yet, there is a trend of rapid and
Fig. 4 Top 10 countries on number of inter- Fig. 5 Expenditures of top 10 international outbound visitors in other countries
national outbound tourists departures 120
$billion
Hong
Kong
SAR,
China
100
United
States
80
United
Kingdom
China
60
Poland
Russian
Federation
40
Italy
20
Canada
France
0
Netherlands
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
0
20
40
60
80
100
United
States
Germany
United
Kingdom
France
Japan
Canada
Italy
Russian
Federation
Spain
China
millions
Fig. 6 Top 10 countries on number of inter-
national inbound tourists arrivals
France
It is obvious that
United
States
UK have has a
China
serious potential
Spain
to increase the
Italy
United
Kingdom
tourists inflow
(there are three
Turkey
Germany
times more tour- UK may attract much more tourists (largely due
Malaysia
ists in neighboring to the tourists from China)
Russian
Federation
France.
0
20
40
60
80
millions
5

6. Seasonal variations of tourist streams
The travel industry traditionally has a seasonal pattern: a large flow of customers in Tourists from Germany, Norway and Australia are especially variable dependent on
the summer and a small stream of customers in the winter. This is true for all coun- the time of year (almost 2 times higher in summer than in winter).
tries, but with slight differences.
max - min Tourists from France and the Irish Republic react less strongly to the seasons .
The variation of tourists is determined by the formula: ,
min
where «max» is maximum spending by overseas residents on visits to the UK, The total spending variation of European tourists (0.69) is one-third less than the vari-
and «min» is minimum spending by overseas residents on visits to the UK. ation of the flow of tourists from the United States (0.92).
Fig. 7 Spending by overseas residents on visits to the UK by country of Fig. 8 Value fluctuations of spending by overseas resi-
residence (2011) dents on visits to the UK by country of residence (2011)
900
£million
USA
800
USA
700
Germany
600
France
USA
Australia
500
Germany
USA
Irish
Republic
400
USA
Australia
Spain
Germany
Irish
Republic
300
Italy
France
Netherlands
200
Norway
100
Canada
0
0,5
1
1,5
2
0
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
(max-­‐min)/min
The flow of tourists from each EU country varies individually, but
the total flow from EU countries is relatively stable
6

7. Distribution of tourist flow by the UK
The population of the UK is distributed unevenly across the country. Overseas tour- Thus, the main point of attraction for tourists is London. But not just in its administra-
ists repeat this pattern: the vast majority of tourists go to England (90%). tive boundaries. The suburbs of London are easily accessible to tourists as well. For
example, approximately 700 000 overseas tourists visit Stonehenge each year (about
This ratio shifts within England. The majority of tourists travelling to England go to 80 miles from London).
London (60%), although the population of London is only a fifth of the rest of Eng-
land.
Fig. 11 Eighty-mile area around London
Fig. 9 The population of Fig. 10 Spending by overseas resi-
the UK dents in regions of the UK (2011)
London, and its surrounding eighty miles of suburbs, is the
area of the largest concentration of overseas tourist in UK
7

8. Types of overseas tourists in the UK
So, we have two basic types of overseas tourists: Note
§ Visitors primarily to London: they tend to follow the standard tourist routes The importance of social networks is not evident despite the role of the internet.
in and around London, without much thought.
§ Visitors to the UK: they choose a deliberate route and study local There are not well-established methods of working with social networks. Estimates of
attractions. social networks influence on tourists plans are varies from 1% to 60%.
Therefore it is not necessary to invest a lot of money in social networks.
The internet is a very important channel of communication, regardless of the type of
tourist. Data from Deloitte shows that 86% of overseas and 91% of domestic travel Simultaneously, companies may monitor social networks for research purposes. For
transactions in the UK are now «digitally influenced». example, they can find people planning a trip to the UK and offer them their own
services.
This means that, even if the final purchase wasn’t made online, almost nine in ten
travel purchases are influenced in some way by digital channels such as websites,
social media, peer reviews and smartphone or tablet apps.
Data from TravelDailyNews shows that 45% of British and 53% of European respond-
ents have used a mobile device to research their trip while in-destination.
Fig. 9 Characteristics of overseas tourists in the UK
Ways of tourists informing Solution of the problem gathering Type of tourist
Location Peculiarity of tourists
Offline Online a complete set of passengers service
London § High concentration of tourists § Major airports § Review websites § To reduce tourists time gathering Mass service
§ Major museums § Local tourist sites and their because of the high concentration
§ Subway versions for mobile devices of tourists
§ Tourist information points § Advertising in mobile appli § Partnership with travel agencies
cations (iOS, Android)
Other UK § Knowledge of local attractions § Major airports § Simplified interface booking § To save running time of gathering Exclusive service
§ Low competition with other a complete set of passengers
local attractions because of their preliminary
informing
§ Partnership with travel agencies
8

9. Thus, overseas tourists are unfamiliar with the United
Kingdom outside of London. This is potentially a signifi-
cant market for tourism (including hotair balloon flights).
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