European Tourism Trends: London Visitors Before and After Pandemic

This report examines the factors influencing tourism in London, comparing visitor data from 2018 and 2020 to understand the impact of the pandemic. The study investigates pre- and post-pandemic travel motivations, analyzing changes in visitor numbers and perceptions. The research aims to identify key drivers for travel, including entertainment, family time, and social interaction, while also considering the importance of health and safety measures. The methodology includes qualitative data collection through interviews and focus groups with travel agents, and thematic analysis is used to interpret the findings. The report highlights the drastic decrease in visitors in 2020 and suggests incorporating health safety measures in tour packages to encourage future travel. The study addresses the research question of factors influencing traveller behaviour and incorporates a timeline for research activities, including data collection, analysis, and report writing. The references include academic journals which are used to support the research and provide context to the changing behaviours.

HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE
VISITING THE TOP
EUROPEAN DESTINATION
2018 AND 2020. WHAT ARE
THE FACTORS MOTIVATE
PEOPLE TO TRAVEL
BEFORE PANDEMIC AND
NOW

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

Topic: To study the factors motivating people to travel before and after Pandemic with reference
to top European Destination: A study on visitors of London in 2018 and 2020.
Research Aims and Objectives
The aims of this study is to identify factors motivating people to visit London before and
after pandemic.
 To expand knowledge of factors that motivates people to travel before pandemic and
now.
 To identify the impact of pandemic on the number of visitors to various top European
destinations.
 To analyse the change in perception of travellers to London between 2018 and 2020.
 To suggest some health safety and security measures that must be incorporated in tour
packages by tourism industry to encourage travellers to visit to London.
Gap in literature
Zheng, Luo and Ritchie (2021), investigated that the entertainment, fun and time spending with
family are the highly motivating factors that encourage people to travel and visit various
destinations across the world. These factors are helpful in relieving from usual stress and peer
pressure. Chua and et. al., (2020), found in their study that with the emergence of pandemic in
2020, there was a drastic downfall in the number of visitors to various destinations of the world
as the health protective factors supersedes other motivating factors of travelling.
Karl and et. al., (2021), studied that after a long duration of pandemic emergence, people
now getting motivated to travel due to motivating factors like, need for social interaction, to meet
their friends and new people. This is due to the reason that people are now feeling bored and
stressful by continuously locking down themselves within the limited premises. By travelling
and visiting to new destinations, they can feel relax, experience natural surroundings and carry
out various cultural activities.
Conclusion or literature gap: There are many researches conducted for studying how people
are getting motivated for travelling before pandemic and after pandemic emergence. These
studies are aimed at investigating on changing behaviour of travellers between 2018 and 2020.
The present research will be conducted on various health related safety and security facilities that
can be incorporated in tour packages to motivate people to undertake visits and tour to various
destinations across the world.

Research problem: What are the factors influencing behaviour of travellers to various European
destinations, both prior to and following the emergence of pandemic?
Visitors data between 2018 and 2020: There are approximately 40.28 million visitors of
London in 2018 which increases to 40.86 in 2019, but with the rise of pandemic there was a
sharp downfall in the number of travellers to London, which is just around 9.7 million.
Research questions
1. What are the factors motivating people to visit London before and after the emergence of
pandemic?
Research Paradigm
The study will be based on qualitative data as it will help researcher in studying changing
perception and factors encouraging undertaking of travel to various European destinations and
more specifically to London, which is the second best place in Europe to visit. Also, in order to
analyse qualitative information concerning about changing travelling pattern with the arisen of
pandemic, inductive research approach will be adopted and to acquire more reliable
understanding interpretivism philosophy will be followed.
Research design
In this study the researcher will incorporate descriptive research design to collect, analyse and
present data in order to answer the research question, that is, finding out the motivating factors
that leads to visit to European countries.
Data collection
The researcher will collect data through undertaking both primary and secondary research. For
collecting qualitative primary data researcher will utilize sources such as, interviews and focus
groups.
Sample
To collect data for the study, the researcher will randomly select the sample of 100 travel agents
in order to gain idea about the research problem and address the same. Travel agents are chosen
for collecting data as they are regularly in contact with tourists, so they can provide relevant
information about the research problem.

Data analysis
In this study, the scholar will adopt thematic analysis to analyse the information so gathered
through sources like interviews and focus groups, as it is considered to be the best techniques for
analysing data which is of qualitative nature.
Timeline
Activities/
Week
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Topic
selection
Deciding
aims and
objectives
Designing
research
proposal
Designing
questionnair
e
Gathering
data
Presentation
of data
Analysing
data
Findings
Conclusion
and
recommenda

tions
Formatting
and
feedback
Final submit

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Zheng, D., Luo, Q. and Ritchie, B. W., 2021. Afraid to travel after COVID-19? Self-protection,
coping and resilience against pandemic ‘travel fear’. Tourism Management, 83,
p.104261.
Chua, B. L., and et. al., 2020. Impact of health risk perception on avoidance of international
travel in the wake of a pandemic. Current Issues in Tourism, pp.1-18.
Karl, M., and et. al., 2021. Affective forecasting and travel decision-making: An investigation in
times of a pandemic. Annals of Tourism Research, 87, p.103139.
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