The amount of people visiting the UK has now fallen for the first time in almost eight years, it was announced earlier this week. There were only 31.9 million foreign visitors to Britain last year, which is a 2.7 percent fall from 2007 numbers.

This total was the first drop the UK has seen in visitor numbers since the terrorist attacks happened in America on September 11, 2001. The report goes on to show that UK tourists also made fewer visitors aboard last year as well.

Tourism experts in the UK blame the ever growing global economic crisis, which started to bite in autumn of last year. This was a big factor for the fall visitor numbers, which are normally quite high. This also painted a very gloomy picture this year, as the credit crunch has continued to subdue typical spending habits of travelers.

However, the UK was happy to report that it saw an increase in its visits from France, who overtook Americans as those making the most visits to UK shores. The big fall in numbers did not stop visitors from spending while in the UK. In fact, the UK saw visitors that did come spending £16.3 billion, which is a 2.3 percent increase from 2007 figures.

The chief executive of VisitBritain, Sandie Dawe, said that the decline in visitors is not something that is unexpected. He did note that there are some positive signs for the start of 2009, as a weak pound offers good value for money that other countries cannot match. He still expects 2009 to be very challenging.