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

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

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

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

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

8. 8
Types of overseas tourists in the UK
So, we have two basic types of overseas tourists:
§ Visitors primarily to London: they tend to follow the standard tourist routes
in and around London, without much thought.
§ Visitors to the UK: they choose a deliberate route and study local
attractions.
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
transactions in the UK are now «digitally influenced».
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.
Location Peculiarity of tourists
Ways of tourists informing Solution of the problem gathering
a complete set of passengers
Type of tourist
serviceOffline
London
Other UK
§ High concentration of tourists
§ Knowledge of local attractions
§ Low competition with other
local attractions
§ Major airports
§ Major museums
§ Subway
§ Tourist information points
§ Major airports
§ Review websites
§ Local tourist sites and their
versions for mobile devices
§ Advertising in mobile appli
cations (iOS, Android)
§ Simplified interface booking
Mass service
Exclusive service
Online
§ To reduce tourists time gathering
because of the high concentration
of tourists
§ Partnership with travel agencies
§ To save running time of gathering
a complete set of passengers
because of their preliminary
informing
§ Partnership with travel agencies
Note
The importance of social networks is not evident despite the role of the internet.
There are not well-established methods of working with social networks. Estimates of
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.
Simultaneously, companies may monitor social networks for research purposes. For
example, they can find people planning a trip to the UK and offer them their own
services.
Fig. 9 Characteristics of overseas tourists in the UK

9. Brain Storm Analytics
BSAnalytics.com
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).