VisitBritain

GREAT Gateway Innovation Fund 2025/26

Learn more about this fund which provides financial assistance to marketing activity in your gateway destination.

Photo by: VisitBritain/The Noodles

A couple travel down an escalator at a train station

The Purpose of the Fund

The fund will provide financial assistance to UK-registered DDPs (England only), LVEPs (England only) or  Regional DMOs (only in Scotland and Wales), to deliver marketing activity in either France and/or the United States.  

The fund focuses marketing innovation by targeting a specific inbound gateway or region in Great Britain which has a direct port of passenger entry, then encourgaging dispersal beyond that point.

Objectives

  1. Drive innovation and collaboration via our regions and raise awareness of Britain through the lens of Starring GREAT Britain.
  2. Encourage partners to collaborate on increasing impact and growing the wider economic impact for that region.
  3. Drive dispersal of the visitor beyond the immediate access/gateway point.
  4. Contribute to VisitBritain’s ROI 13:1 target.

VisitBritain is looking to support either a DDP, LVEP or DMO to:

  • Promote and market your gateway/region experiences to an international consumer audience in France and/or the USA, and disperse beyond that point.
  • Deliver a fully integrated consumer facing marketing campaign (this could include third-party media buy, influencer programme etc.) between October 2025 and March 2026.
  • Inspire and rally a) the local industry, b) a secondary destination partner, c) a commercial partner with an airline, ferry or train service to unlock matched investment, to extend the marketing campaign and reach a bigger audience.
  • Contribute 2:1 matched funding, made up of cash and in-kind.
  • Provide post-campaign quantitative evaluation results from the executed marketing activities, including monetary (GBP equivalent) and volume (number) of consumer bookings generated from incremental visitors.

Budget

  • £400,000 in total (if applying for France, the budget is £100,000)
  • Matched funding requires 2:1 match. For example:
    VB £100,000  Partner £200,000 made up of a minimum of £50,000 cash to invest in the media plan and £150,000 value in kind (should be consumer facing channels, production costs which will need to be assessed)
  • Applicants can submit proposals for all markets, but will only be awarded one fund.

The fund will support:

  • Media buy with a third-party media owner (you will need access to a media agency).
  • Development and delivery of an influencer trip from relevant market.
  • B2B2C communication activities.
  • Other third-party marketing costs may be considered at the discretion of VisitBritain (i.e. third-party bespoke email development or targeted data purchase) but approval must be obtained prior to entering into spending commitments with the third party.
  • PR, social media or any agency fees, production of new content/assets etc or any other added costs should not exceed 30% of the total cash budget. 

Criteria will be based on;

  1. Gateway Gap Capacity
  2. Industry partnerships
  3. Marketing, creative and content plans
  4. Objectives and measurement
  5. Resource/expertise 

Anticipated timings

  • Register your details to enable you to access and complete the formal application - available now https://grants.visitbritain.org/
  • Formal fund open for applications – w/c 21 July 2025 https://grants.visitbritain.org/
  • Closing date for applications - 12:00 BST 21 August 2025
  • Notification of successful applications – w/c 8 September 2025
  • Live dates between October 2025 - March 2026
  • For further questionsplease contact [email protected]
  • This prospectus has been shared to allow as much time as possible to explore this opportunity and engage with partners, you can formally submit your application from w/c July 21 2025

Application documents

PDF

VisitBritain Creative Guidelines.pdf

Brand guidelines for VisitBritain GREAT campaigns

PDF

GREAT Gateway Innovation Fund prospectus

This prospectus is for more information on the GREAT Gateway Fund 2024/5.

Find A Grant

This opportunity is on Find a Grant. Find a Grant is a service that allows you to search government grants.

You can use this service to:
 

  • access government grant funding 
  • search and filter to find a grant that matches your needs
  • find out if you are eligible to apply for a grant
  • find out how to apply for a grant