Understanding VFR tourism behaviour: the first five years of the United Kingdom tourism survey

Abstract

This paper assesses the structure of VFR (visiting friends and relatives) tourism in the UK between 1989 and 1993 in relation to four main issues: VFR expenditure patterns, VFR destination choices, the timing and duration of VFR trips, and VFR demographic travel propensity by social class, age and life cycle. The results suggest the need for important modifications or extensions to previous assumptions about the VFR category in terms of its value, destination features, its temporal distribution and the profile of its main participants. A number of hypotheses are offered as the basis for replication studies and further research. The analysis is based on a disaggregation of VFR tourism from five annual United Kingdom Tourism Surveys (UKTS) carried out continuously between 1989 and 1993, which provide the first five-year run of data on domestic tourism in the UK based on an unchanging and consistent methodology. The data represents the largest, standardised longitudinal data set on VFR tourism yet presented in the literature. The UKTS results are compared with VFR results derived from published studies of VFR travel elsewhere.