Different places round the world have different approaches to the same issue. In the US you seem more likely to be just sent on an indirect slow track to while the minutes away, whereas at London they bring everyone in as far as they can and then do the "going round in circles" VOR hold, quite close in (from the Ockham hold you are in sight of the Heathrow runways). Each organisation has their own reasons why they choose their methods.
European airspace relies much more on following published routes, procedures and holds, whereas in the US they are more likely to give you radar vectors (ie individual heading instructions) to handle the flow.
At Hong Kong I was, unusully, put in a hold, which seemed to comprise overflying the airport and heading east out to sea about 50 miles, then turning and coming back. But at Helsinki (which gets surprisingly busy in the afternoon) it was a VOR hold just like London.