Understanding urban tourism: London in the early 1990s

Using London as an example this paper demonstrates that the idea of tourism as ‘pleasure and recreation’ is wholly inadequate for an understanding of the published evidence on tourism in major cities. In the UK this results directly from the definition adopted by the main statistical sources such that tourists become travellers, irrespective of purpose, who stay overnight at their destination. In so doing the paper highlights two areas for future research, the growing trend in short‐distance tourism and the increasing importance of visiting friends and relatives. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.