Spring Session - users sample not working with eclipse and tomcat 7 - spring-session

Question

I am trying to run the multiple users sample referred in the spring documentation https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-session/tree/1.2.2.RELEASE//samples/users. However, I am facing an issue because it starts to look for a applicationContext.xml file. I dont understand why this happens when i am using a java-based approach to initialize the config(similar to the example). Below is the log snippet and the exception trace from eclipse concole:
Sep 15, 2016 11:44:44 AM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
*INFO: Spring WebApplicationInitializers detected on classpath: [sample.Initializer#1465dd5]*
log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger (org.springframework.web.context.support.StandardServletEnvironment).
log4j:WARN Please initialize the log4j system properly.
Sep 15, 2016 11:44:44 AM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: Initializing Spring root WebApplicationContext
Sep 15, 2016 11:44:44 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext listenerStart
SEVERE: Exception sending context initialized event to listener instance of class org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: IOException parsing XML document from ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]; nested exception is java.io.FileNotFoundException: Could not open ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]
at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlBeanDefinitionReader.java:343)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlBeanDefinitionReader.java:303)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.java:180)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.java:216)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.java:187)
at org.springframework.web.context.support.XmlWebApplicationContext.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlWebApplicationContext.java:125)
at org.springframework.web.context.support.XmlWebApplicationContext.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlWebApplicationContext.java:94)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractRefreshableApplicationContext.refreshBeanFactory(AbstractRefreshableApplicationContext.java:129)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.obtainFreshBeanFactory(AbstractApplicationContext.java:540)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:454)
at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.configureAndRefreshWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:403)
at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:306)
at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:106)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:4765)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5260)
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1525)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1515)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:303)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:138)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)
Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: Could not open ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]
at org.springframework.web.context.support.ServletContextResource.getInputStream(ServletContextResource.java:141)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlBeanDefinitionReader.java:329)
... 22 more
Sep 15, 2016 11:44:44 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext startInternal
SEVERE: Error listenerStart
Sep 15, 2016 11:44:44 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext startInternal
SEVERE: Context [/usersMultipleTab] startup failed due to previous errors
EDIT:
I am Not sure if this info is required. But i am using Maven for dependency management.
EDIT:
Maven Config below(rest all is same from github):
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>SAMPLE</groupId>
<artifactId>usersMultipleTab</artifactId>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<name>sample</name>
<url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
<properties>
<jdk.version>1.6</jdk.version>
<project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
<org.springframework.version>4.0.3.RELEASE</org.springframework.version>
<maven.compiler.source>1.6</maven.compiler.source>
<maven.compiler.target>1.6</maven.compiler.target>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-expression</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-context-support</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-webmvc-portlet</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.ws</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-ws</artifactId>
<version>1.5.8</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-jdbc</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>3.8.1</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
<version>3.0.1</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>log4j</groupId>
<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
<version>1.2.15</version>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>com.sun.jdmk</groupId>
<artifactId>jmxtools</artifactId>
</exclusion>
<exclusion>
<groupId>com.sun.jmx</groupId>
<artifactId>jmxri</artifactId>
</exclusion>
<exclusion>
<groupId>javax.jms</groupId>
<artifactId>jms</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>commons</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-codec</artifactId>
<version>1.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>jstl</groupId>
<artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
<version>1.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>jstl</groupId>
<artifactId>jstl-impl</artifactId>
<version>1.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-collections4</artifactId>
<version>4.1</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.session</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-session</artifactId>
<version>1.2.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>