Latest figures from VisitBritain show that Britain’s global appeal as a tourist destination is profiting from its biggest ever image campaign, leading to a possible £200 million of extra visitor spending inside the UK over the subsequent two years.
The £25 million GREAT image tourism campaign – which targeted 14 major cities in nine countries – is performing well at the international stage, especially when benchmarked against competitor tourist boards with substantially larger budgets.
GREAT tourism activity continues to accomplish high levels of reach and recall – 72% of the audience in target cities recall seeing the good campaign. It also continues to extend the selection of people actively considering visiting the united kingdom within the next year due to VisitBritain ads – 23 % of these who recall the campaign plan to go to within the next year rather than 11% of these who don’t recall the campaign.(1)
The national tourism agency estimates that its GREAT image activity helps drive uplift within the variety of people worldwide seeking to come to experience the perfect of what Britain has to supply. This increased intention to go to then feeds into VisitBritain’s partnership marketing – offering great deals with commercial partners corresponding to British Airways to encourage bookings. The findings are a lift for the organisation because it fights to extend visitor numbers in a very competitive marketplace.
Analysis of the primary year of VisitBritain’s GREAT activity has revealed that it has potentially delivered another 422,000 visits from the objective cities.(2) This potential return from visits means the tourism part of the good campaign has achieved a return on investment of 8:1.
The findings also indicate that the campaign helps to showcase the entire of england. Across all the survey cities, people strongly agreed that the promotional work made them would like to visit places outside of London.(3)
Sandie Dawe, Chief Executive of VisitBritain said: “In 2012 Britain became the 1st Olympic host since Sydney to work out a rise in inbound tourism within the year of the Games.
“The GREAT campaign is playing a big role in our efforts to draw a better variety of overseas visitors, with those seeing our images increasingly more likely to visit the united kingdom within the following couple of years. It’s essential that we continue to deliver this campaign in our high value tourism markets and the expansion markets of the long run if we’re to boost overseas perceptions of england as a must see destination.”
Culture Secretary Maria Miller said: “The GREAT campaign have been fantastic, encouraging overseas visitors to return and experience the best of england. We have to sustain the momentum, and continue to extend both the collection of visitor numbers and the amount of cash they spend here. The tourism industry has a key role to play in delivering economic growth and the good campaign remains on the heart of the sector’s strategy.”
In 2012, the united kingdom welcomed 31 million overseas visitors spending a record £18.6 billion within the process. By 2020, VisitBritain believes the united kingdom could welcome 40 million overseas visitors a year, contributing £31.5 billion annually to the economy.
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