It’s the same every year: as soon as the festive break is over it’s the start of the 'silly season' in the tourism industry calendar with the majority of trade shows, sales workshops and marketing activities all happening at the same time in the first quarter of the year..

And in this big year for Britain, it looks as if it’s going to be even more extreme with VisitBritain running our biggest marketing programme ever and interest in Britain, especially from the media, noticeably picking up.

Last week I joined two very different events in my region: FITUR in Madrid and 'Meet the Media' in Brussels. FITUR is the biggest tourism show in Spain and the
second biggest tourism trade exhibition in Europe (after ITB Berlin). It also has a significant number of trade visitors from South American markets (including the important growth market Brazil). VisitBritain once again coordinated a strong Britain presence at FITUR this year, for the first time using the branding of our new GREAT campaign. This year we had 13 companies on the stand, ranging from London attractions to a Spanish operator specialising in Britain. On Wednesday morning the Spanish Principes de Asturias (to most better known as Prince Filipe and his wife Letizia) and the Spanish Minister for Industry, Energy and Tourism, José Manuel Soria, visited our stand as part of their official opening round and spent quite a long time talking to us about the importance of tourism in Britain and event highlights this year. The Thursday was especially busy this year.

In spite of the very difficult economic situation in Spain, visits from Spain to Britain were only down 2% last year according to the provisional IPS figures from January to November 2011. Holiday visits were even up on the previous year and interest especially in city breaks was very high. Charles Dickens is extremely popular in Spain and media are giving extensive coverage of the 200th anniversary of his birth. And of course interest in the Diamond Jubilee is also very high. For feedback from the trade on this year it’s still too early but city breaks across Britain are very popular in Spain. We have just published a brand new version of our Market Profile Spain which contains very useful and detailed information about the Spanish market.

On Thursday I flew on to Belgium where on Friday last week we had our 'Meet the Media' workshop in Brussels with 70 journalists from a variety of media attending. For more than five hours they had the opportunity to talk to representatives from 22 companies from Britain representing regions, attractions, carriers, hotels, etc. As I already wrote above with all the major events coming up in Britain this year there currently is very strong interest from the media in Britain and journalists are looking ideas for stories and support. In Belgium there is very strong interest in the Diamond Jubilee but also more general themes like gardens and heritage.

Following a very strong increase in visits from Belgium to Britain in 2010 last year they were down by 13% from January to November according to the provisional IPS figures for 2011. It’s too early yet for an outlook for 2012 but as in Spain, the interest in city breaks across the whole of Britain is usually very high.

If you are interested in the Belgian market we are expecting to publish the updated Market Profile Belgium in March. In the meantime, and if you don’t want to wait so long, this is the current version. Our representative in Belgium, Myriam de Mulder, will be moving into the British Embassy in Brussels (in the European Quarter next to Place Schumann) at the end of February.

Not long 'til ITB Berlin. Hope to see you there!