‘Welcome’ is the term used to describe the experience provided to tourists before, at arrival and during their visit to a country. It is an area where Britain underperforms. The UK was ranked 3rd overall in the Anholt-GFK Nation Brands Index (2011), but fell to 12th when welcome was measured.

The Ryder Cup in 2010 and Royal Wedding in April 2011, and major forthcoming events such as the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee in 2012, Commonwealth Games in 2014 and Rugby World Cup in 2015 put Britain at the forefront of the world stage.

These events provide opportunities to showcase the UK as an excellent destination to visit and invest in, with huge promotional potential for tourism, travel, hospitality and leisure businesses – but only if we make visitors feel welcome. Research shows that the more welcome visitors feel, the more likely they are to recommend Britain as great destination to family and friends. This is particularly important since word of mouth has more influence over destination choice than any other source of information.

Qualitative and quantitative research indicates that first time visitors feel more welcome in Britain that they expect to – the reality of Britain’s welcome is better than perceptions of it.

The Anholt-GFK Nation Brands Index (NBI) is the best source of potential visitors’ perceptions of Welcome. NBI is a syndicated survey of 20,000 online consumers across the globe. It measures the power and appeal of a nation’s brand image, and tells us how consumers around the world see the character and personality of 50 countries.  They are not classic Britain ‘best prospects’ but general online representatives of their countries. As part of the survey, respondents were asked to state how far they agreed with the following sentence: ‘If I visited this country, they would make me feel very welcome’.

Whilst perceived as fairly welcoming the UK performs more poorly in the NBI than some European competitors, and was rated 12th most welcoming in 2011. This is an improvement from the 2008 rating of 14th. Clearly however, there remains a lot of scope to improve perceptions of Welcome.

Actual visitor’s perceptions of Welcome are more positive and show perceptions are improving. 84% of those surveyed in a CAA Passenger survey in 2010 were ‘net promoters’, that is to say positive about the welcome they received, a 6% increase on 2009. Another survey of more than 12,000 overseas visitors we commissioned in 2010 showed that 79% of visitors felt either extremely or very welcome and only 3% feeling unwelcome. This is a marked improvement from 2009 figures.

Welcome can be divided into three work streams;

• Experiences while still overseas (pre-departure),
• Experiences at Ports of Entry/Exit, and
• Experiences while travelling within the UK or ‘In country’.

We have identified five strategic areas for improving Welcome:

1. Improve the UK visitor visa application process
2. Improve skills in the tourism sector
3. Improve sense of place and welcome at ports of entry
4. Reduce queue times at the border control at ports and airports
5. Use the power of 2012 across Government to promote Britain's Welcome 

We are working towards these strategic objectives and improving overall welcome through a number of projects (for information on border controls and visitor visas please go to the visas page). These include;

GREAT Britain You’re Invited

Our four-year GREAT Britain You’re Invited marketing programme takes on the issue of Welcome.

Launched in June 2011, the first stage was TV advert; 'An Invitation from Celebrities'. The celebrity ambassadors, as well as non-British regional ambassadors, provide a way to extend a warm personal invitation.

In September VisitBritain rolled out the next stage of the marketing campaign; the ‘Invitation from the Tourism Industry’. This consists of a series of partner-marketing campaigns aimed at driving bookings for 2012.

The final stage will be a major social media campaign: the Invitation from the British People. The big idea is to get ordinary people, clubs, societies, and small businesses, communities to invite their friends and relatives to Britain in 2012.

Social Media and PR

The use of PR and social media is important in improving perceptions of welcome as it provides a means of direct engagement with potential visitors, as well as a less formal, more welcoming tone of voice. We receive 11 million visitors annually to visitbritain.com, and it’s Facebook group LoveUK had 70 million views in the last 12 months.

Welcome to Britain Group 
 
The Welcome to Britain Steering Group was brought together in 2007 under the leadership of VisitBritain. It worked with partners drawn from a wide range of organisations across travel, transport, hospitality, border processes and public diplomacy, whose activities have an impact on the quality of visitors’ first impressions of Britain (and critically the important ports of entry into the UK). The aims were to inspire Britain’s tourism and hospitality industry to significantly improve and deliver a first-class welcome to all visitors and ensure a lasting legacy in the shift of both perceptions and reality of the welcome experienced.

Following the publication of the Tourism Policy in March 2011 and DCMS’s greater engagement in delivering Welcome, the need for a separate steering group diminished.  The Welcome to Britain steering group has therefore been brought to a close.

Delivering the Tourism Policy

VisitBritain has reviewed its work to ensure it is aligned with the Government’s Tourism Policy, and the Tourism Deregulation Taskforce, of which we are a member.

The Tourism Policy sets out to improve welcome by increasing online visa applications, developing a shorter application form, providing guidance in local language, sharing VACs with trusted allies, creating greater transparency of data on port transit times and setting up minimum check in times. For more information on these please return to the main Tourism Affairs menu and select ‘Visas’.

In Country

VisitBritain has also coordinated work on Welcome ‘in country’ with Visit Scotland, Visit England, Visit Wales and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. These include:

• Welcome ‘audits’ have now been carried out at some 15 airports around the UK, resulting in programmes at those airports to build on best practice and address shortcomings.

• Improving Welcome skills within the tourism workforce. Visit Wales for example successfully ran the Croeso Cynnes Cymru (Warm Welsh Welcome) scheme in the run up to the Ryder Cup in 2010.