An Investigation into Why Tourists Choose to Visit London

This research report delves into the motivations behind tourists' choices to visit London. It begins with an introduction highlighting London's significance as a global city and its historical and cultural richness. The report then outlines the objectives, including understanding tourism's importance, identifying tourist attractions, and analyzing challenges faced by tourism firms. A comprehensive literature review explores the economic impact of tourism on London and the UK, highlighting revenue generation, job creation, and the city's global brand image. It examines key attractions such as historical sites, cultural institutions, and diverse experiences, including architecture, food, and sports. The report also addresses the challenges encountered by tourism firms, such as staffing issues, unequal treatment, and working conditions. The methodology section details the inductive research approach used to gather data through interviews, enabling the generation of new theories based on findings. Ethical considerations are also addressed, ensuring responsible research practices. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing the multifaceted factors that make London a prime destination for tourists.

Foundation Project
Research Plan

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Objectives........................................................................................................................................3
Literature review..............................................................................................................................3
Importance of tourism to London...........................................................................................3
Reason why tourist visit the city of London...........................................................................4
Challenges faced by the tourism firms in London..................................................................5
Research methodology and Rationale..............................................................................................7
Ethical Considerations ....................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

Topic: “An investigation into why tourists choose to visit London.”
INTRODUCTION
London is a big city in which different types of organisations are working for the benefit
of the people. The city is famous for its architecture, tourists places, breath taking
views,mountains etc. due to which a large number of customers prefers to visit the city of
London. London is also famous for its history which is associated with Romans as well as it is
the capital of England. The city is situated near the River Thames in the south-east of England as
well as it has 50-mile estuary leading to the North Sea. It is one of the world's most important
global cities which is also known as the world's most powerful, most desirable, most influential,
most visited, most expensive, innovative, sustainable, most investment friendly, most popular for
work, and the most vegetarian friendly city in the world. This research will cover the literature
review, research methodology, rationale along with the ethical consideration which must be
followed by the researcher in conducting the research. This research topic is selected for
investigating the reason for which a large number of customers prefers to visit the city of
London.
Objectives
Objectives are the milestones which must be accomplished by the researcher after
conducting the research. The key objectives for this research are as follows:
 To understand the importance of tourism to London.
 To determine the reason why tourist visit the city of London.
 To understand the challenges faced by the tourism firms in London.
Literature review
Importance of tourism to London
According to the Tom Kennedy, (2011) Tourism is an important sector for the UK
economy as it contributed revenue of worth £115.4bn to the UK economy in 2009 which is equal
to 8.9 per cent of UK GDP. This argument can be supported by using some statistics which will
be discussed here. Jobs provided by the tourism sector is estimated to increase by 250,000 from
2010 till the year 2020, which is approx. in dollars as from 2.645 million to 2.899 million. Also
Tourism is third highest export earner in terms of revenue in UK after chemicals and financial

services. The brand image and rank of the UK is also good in the world in terms of tourism as
UK got 5th rank in the world in term of tourism due to having historic buildings and monuments,
vibrant city life, amazing views etc. Also 5.8 million people visited the British Museum which is
a world famous attraction in the UK. The Royal family of London generate around £500 million
each year through the visitors from Tower of London, Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace.
These are also the world famous royal destinations (UK Tourism facts and figures, 2011). Also
more than 70 per cent of visitors of UK reached the country through the air transport which
shows the richness of the people who visit the country. Other than London, Edinburgh Castle is
one of the most popular destination for tourists which attracts more than 1.2 million people every
year. Apart from these, London is the capital city of England having a great history. The
historical monuments, breath taking views of the mountains, sea, clouds etc. attracts a large
number of customers towards the city. These destination are also assisting the tourism firms to
invest in UK and expand their business operations to the UK in order to raise their profit, sales
and revenue. These improved sales and profit is essential for the firms in order to sustain in the
market for a long period of time. Also these firms provides their services to the customers in
order to ensure their satisfaction which will help the country in retaining them so that they will
visit the country again. When customers will prefer to visit the country again, then the living
standard along with the job opportunities for the local people which will help them in improving
their life.
Reason why tourist visit the city of London
According to the Georgina Wilson-Powell, (2019) London provides a rich experience to
the tourists as it is an incredible city through its 2,000-year history. The city is popular for its
culture, architecture, art, food and fashion, Building, monuments etc. which does not exist
anywhere else in the world. The British Library of London is the biggest library in the world
having more than 150 million catalogued items which are held inside of library from 2000 BC.
The library contains all the book which are published in UK and Ireland. Apart from that, books
such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, original song sheets of Beatles and the memorandum
written by Lord Nelson etc. which attracts the tourists (Reason Everyone Should Visit London At
Least Once, 2019). Britain is having a good pub culture. The British beers are varied and
delicious. When tourist head to The George in London Bridge which was a pub heavily enjoyed
by Shakespeare. Also the Old Blythe Tavern in Catford is famous as Irish pub which provides

quality based British cuisine. The architecture of the London was inspired by its history.
Buildings such as Christ Church, Royal Naval College, St Pancras train station, etc. are known
for their good architecture and they can be visited at free of cost. London also offers amazing
street food, supper clubs and restaurants for each segment of customers whether are middle class
or high class. Food market such as Borough Market and Exmouth Market provides a wide and
tasty range of food products and ingredients. Also places such as The Ledbury, Lyle’s and The
Clove Club etc. are marked in the Top 50 restaurant on Earth. London is also famous for sports
as it has some of the finest sports fields which is used by the sports team from all over the world.
Every tennis player desires to play at Wimbledon, footballers at Wembley and rugby players at
Twickenham, cricketers at Lord’s. These four places has a history of 550 years of elite sport in
their name and provides a good experience to the sports fans who visit these places for their
entertainment purposes. Also London is famous for its fashion weeks and shows in which both
women wear and menswear are presented by the British Fashion Council and young designers
of world for a good experience of fashion enthusiasts. The cultural diversity of the London is of
no match with any city or country Elephant & Castle’s Corsica Studios are most popular place
among the visitors for night out, tucked away and insulated from the area’s ongoing restoration
(Mason, 2015). Apart from these places such as British Museum, the V&A, Tate Modern, the
National Portrait Gallery, the Natural History Museum, the Wallace Collection etc. are very
famous among the visitors of other countries which can be visited free of charge and visitors
does not have to pay any money or penny to the authorities for watching these places. London
also has a wide variety of accommodation services providers which provides the accommodation
and food products to the customers at every price range. London is famous for its parks too such
as Royal Parks which is in the heart of the city, St James, Hyde Park, Hampstead Heath in the
north of the city etc. are good places where people can relax and view the local people of London
who performs their daily activities.
Challenges faced by the tourism firms in London
According to Sintayehu Aynalem and Sewent Tesefay, (2016) There are various
challenges which are faced by the tourism firms in the London while serving their services to the
customers. Tourism sector firms plays a major role in creating the employment opportunities for
the local people of a UK nation in which the firm is operating their business operations. These
job opportunities arises in various areas such as accommodations, transportation, attractions sites

etc. So, availability of skilled and talented people is a major requirement for these firms so as to
perform their business operations for serving the customers (Aynalem, Birhanu and Tesefay,
2016). The challenges in this are associated with unstable employment, low job status, long
antisocial working hours and low pay etc. These issues arises due to not hiring suitable staff and
high staff turnover which can be proved costly for the success of firm in London. The
management of the firms needs to maintain good relationship among the human resources and
tourism. This can be supported by using two aspects. First is that the tourism can become
successful in the market by employing good skilled and talented staff for serving the customers
in better manner. The other aspect is that the managers and customers needs to treat the workers
of tourism firms with social equality and justice (Aitchison and et. al., 2014). The destinations
and quality of the experience of the customers are also important for firms in order to overcome
the challenges associated with the services. Unequal treatment is also a major challenge for the
tourism firms which can impact their services which are served to the customers. Women
performs 66 percent of work in the world, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 per cent of
the income and own 1 per cent of the property. These conditions are proof that the women are
not getting the same treatment then men and also the women has low share in land, capital and
education than men. Unskilled or semi-skilled women are working in the most vulnerable jobs
around the world in which they experience poor working conditions, inequality of opportunity
and treatment, violence, exploitation, stress and sexual harassment etc. Other factors such as low
level of education and training, widespread poverty, poor maternal health and lack of sex
education together with socio-cultural factors are impacting the working of women from
becoming empowered as economic actors. The workplace of the women could be away from
their house which can impact them negatively as this will impose both travel and time costs on
women who does not have the full access to the financial and time-flexibility resources. Other
reason is that the managerial positions are dominated by the men whereas lower levels
occupations having limited career development opportunities are dominated by the women
which is also a major concern for the Tourism firms in London. Also the factors such as low
hourly rates of pay, over time work without extra money, long working hours of 50 hours per
week, little or no adequate breaks during peak season periods etc. are other reason which can
impact the working of tourism firms. Other then these, management style, corporate philosophy
and leadership style, unplanned recruitment, little due attention for staff turnover, imported

workforce, considering staffs as cost rather than asset are also creating barriers for the tourism
firms.
Research methodology and Rationale
Research approach: Research approach is consist of two approaches i.e. deductive
approach and inductive approach. The deductive approach provides a better understanding of the
corporate social responsibility actions by using the empirical data. However, inductive research
approach is used in this study which is essential for conducting the research. This is selected
because it relies on the subjectivity in evaluation of the observations for supporting the final
outcomes or results of this investigation. Also this approach is suitable to use for this research
study because this approach is concerned with generating new theory by analysing the gathered
or collected data (Mowforth and Munt, 2015). This inductive research approach is also useful for
the researcher in gathering the data through various source such as interviews and new theories
will be developed based on the findings of the collected data. Interviews are helpful in collecting
the useful and valid information in order to develop new strategies and theories.
Data collection: In this research, two types of data collection methods are being used for
collecting the required data. The primary data is mainly collected from primary sources such as
face to face interviews of theorists and professors etc. as they provides the accurate and reliable
data to researcher for conducting the research (Smith, 2015). However, secondary data is
collected from data sources such as books, newspapers, journals etc. as these are cheap in terms
of costs and takes less time for collecting the data. The data collected from both of the sources is
used for preparing a questionnaire which will be analysed for getting the final results and
outcomes.
Limitations of research: The major limitation in conducting this research is of time for
executing the research properly. The data collection from primary sources consumed lot of time
due to which researcher has to face the time issues and he selected the secondary data sources for
collecting the remaining data to execute the research in an appropriate manner (Mayer, 2015).
The researcher has also faced issues such as ability of researcher in including a large size of
samples for conducting the primary research. However, researcher managed to allot the proper
time to the different part of research in order to finish them in the predetermined time period.

Ethical Considerations
There are various ethical considerations which must be considered by the the research in
conducting the research. These considerations are necessary as they provides meaningful and
accurate results without adversely impacting anyone who is involved in this study. This research
has used primary research and ethics of the research are applied to the study for ensuring that the
obtained results will be relevant and valid. The research ethics has three principles i.e. informed
consent, anonymity and confidentiality (Hill, 2012). Informed consent deals with providing the
accurate information of the aims and objectives of research so that the respondent can opt in or
opt out based on their interest. Anonymity states that the information of the respondents must not
be used in results or should not be linked with the primary research. The principle of
confidentiality states that the results of the research or study must be shared only with those who
are part of the research or provided their contribution in conducting the research. Apart from
these principles, there are several other ethical considerations which must be followed by the
researcher in conducting the research (Maxwell, 2012). These includes confidentiality of the data
provided by the respondents as well as protection of the information of the respondents. The
researcher also needs to use reliable sources while collecting the data from secondary data
sources such as academic journals, originals books etc. The researcher also needs to analyse the
data properly so as to eliminate any errors or issues which can impact the execution of the
research.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above report that tourism sector is growing at a rapid pace
in the London which is also improving the living standard of the local people. For conducting
any research, researcher needs to use reliable sources of information collection in order to bring
favourable and proper outcomes. The researcher also needs to use the primary and secondary
data collection tools as well as needs to choose the inductive approach for this research.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aynalem, S., Birhanu, K. and Tesefay, S., 2016. Employment opportunities and challenges in
tourism and hospitality sectors. Journal of Tourism & Hospitality. 5(6). pp.1-5.
Mason, P., 2015. Tourism impacts, planning and management. Routledge.
Aitchison and et. al., 2014. Leisure and tourism landscapes: Social and cultural geographies.
Routledge.
Mowforth, M. and Munt, I., 2015. Tourism and sustainability: Development, globalisation and
new tourism in the third world. Routledge.
Smith, M.K., 2015. Issues in cultural tourism studies. Routledge.
Mayer, I., 2015. Qualitative research with a focus on qualitative data analysis. International
Journal of Sales, Retailing & Marketing. 4(9). pp.53-67.
Hill, C.E., 2012. Consensual qualitative research: A practical resource for investigating social
science phenomena. American Psychological Association.
Maxwell, J.A., 2012. Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (Vol. 41). Sage
publications.
Online:
UK Tourism facts and figures. 2011. Available through
<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/tourism/8587231/UK-Tourism-
facts-and-figures.html>
Reason Everyone Should Visit London At Least Once. 2019. Available through
<https://theculturetrip.com/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/12-reasons-
everyone-should-visit-london-at-least-once/>