The £10 million international GREAT Britain marketing campaign ‘Welcome to Another Side of Britain’ was formally launched by The Rt Hon Nadine Dorries MP, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) at a VisitBritain reception on 9 February in Dubai, UAE. The event, hosted by British Tourist Authority chair Dame Judith Macgregor and including top travel trade and tourism industry representatives from the GCC and India, was in support of the wider programme for UK National Day at Expo Dubai.
VisitBritain’s international campaign is putting the spotlight on Britain’s cities, hit hard by the absence of international visitors, as well as on messages of welcome and reassurance. It is also capturing the major events this year, set to be global tourism draws, including HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and ‘Unboxed,’ the UK-wide celebration of creativity.
Chair of VisitBritain Dame Judith Macgregor with UK Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, our Director for APMEA Tricia Warwick and the UK Government’s GREAT campaign Director Andrew Pike, at the formal launch of our £10 million international GREAT Britain campaign – Welcome to Another Side in Britain - in Dubai, and rolling out from this week across our international markets.
UK Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Nadine Dorries said:
“This brilliant campaign will highlight the best of the UK to the world and show that we are open and ready to welcome back international visitors.
"2022 is a fantastic time to visit thanks to major events including Her Majesty The Queen's Platinum Jubilee, the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, Women’s Euros, Rugby League World Cup and UNBOXED."
VisitBritain CEO Sally Balcombe said:
“We know there is pent-up demand for travel and our priority is to build back demand for Britain and visitor spending as quickly as possible, competing hard for international visitors who contribute billions to our economy.
“As well as messages of welcome and reassurance, we’re shining the spotlight on our vibrant and diverse cities. Telling the stories of our renowned heritage and iconic city attractions with a modern twist, our buzzing contemporary culture and innovative food and drink scene, we are showing that Britain is bursting full of fresh and exciting experiences to come and enjoy right now.
“This year’s landmark events including HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the Commonwealth Games and the ground-breaking ‘Unboxed’ events across the UK, also present exciting and timely opportunities to highlight once-in-a-lifetime experiences that visitors can only have here, and to promote our warm welcome and creativity to the world.”
VisitBritain’s international advertising campaign kicks off this week with a mix of short films and branded city-focused content across social media channels, digital display advertising and print media. Content will also drive online ‘traffic’ to www.visitbritain.com with ideas and links to city activities, city visitor attractions and experiences highlighting ‘another side of Britain’ using #lovegreatbritain - from rooftop afternoon tea in Liverpool to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, from sailing in a hot tub down the Thames in London to gin tasting at Cardiff Distillery.
The paid campaign is running across the UK’s major European short-haul markets including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, and the United States, its most valuable inbound visitor market. Activity is also underway across all VisitBritain’s international markets using the extensive reach of its global and in-country digital channels, both business and consumer and working with the travel trade in market.
VisitBritain is also working with partners including British Airways in the USA and TripAdvisor in Europe to extend the campaign’s reach and drive bookings.
VisitBritain is also calling for tourism businesses, visitor attractions and destinations across Britain to get involved, with a free toolkit of marketing and branded campaign assets available to download from VisitBritain’s website.
To drive back spending, the campaign is targeting visitors that VisitBritain’s consumer research shows have the greatest commitment and intent to travel internationally in 2022. More than half of travellers VisitBritain surveyed across 13 markets, who intended taking an international trip in the next 12 months had not yet booked or decided where to go, creating valuable opportunities to influence destination-choice and bookings.
VisitBritain has estimated the loss in overseas visitor spending in the UK, in 2020 and 2021 combined, to be more than £48 billion. In addition, it calculates that the fall in bookings and cancellations due to Omicron saw an additional loss of £1.5 billion in inbound tourism spending in the UK in the first eight weeks alone.
VisitBritain’s ‘Welcome to Another Side of Britain’ campaign is part of the UK Government’s refreshed GREAT campaign.
Inbound tourism was worth more than £28 billion to the UK economy in 2019, its third largest service export and a major part of British trade.
Notes to editors:
- Download the campaign images (ZIP, 9MB)
- Cities and experiences featured in the VisitBritain’s international marketing campaign launch film and wider images include; Bath, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, Liverpool, Oxford, Manchester and York.
- The campaign’s city-focused content has been tailored using VisitBritain’s research into its target audiences’ interests and motivations for travel right now - including ‘city foodies’, ‘city icons with a modern twist’, and ‘outdoors in the city’ - alongside ‘travelling responsibly’, ‘travelling to reconnect’ and ‘freedom to explore.’
- VisitBritain’s target audience for the campaign, based on its international consumer sentiment research, are travellers that showed the most commitment and intent to travel this year. It terms this audience ‘buzzseekers’ – defined as high value experience-seekers who are spontaneous, pack lots into their holidays and are looking for exciting new ideas and experiences.
- The USA is the UK’s largest and most valuable inbound visitor market, worth £4.2 billion in 2019; 15% of all inbound spending. In 2019, there were 4.5 million visits from the USA, 11% of all inbound visits to the UK in 2019. Germany and France are the UK’s third and fourth most valuable inbound markets, worth £1.6bn and £1.4bn respectively to the economy in 2019.
- More information is available here about HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee; ‘UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK’ 2022 and The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. There is also a dedicated website on gov.uk here: https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/2022-events-platinum-jubile...
- For further information on other events in Britain in 2022, please see https://www.visitbritain.com/gb/en/reasons-why-britains-brilliant-2022
- For more information about the UK Government’s GREAT campaign see: https://www.greatcampaign.com/
