VisitBritain ‘on track for record number of inbound tourists’

VisitBritain says it is set to beat its target of achieving £2bn additional visitor spend over a four-year period, as well as counting a record number of tourists into the UK. 

Three years after its post-Olympic ‘GREAT’ campaign, VisitBritain claims it has generated £1.8bn additional visitor spend, according to its annual review for 2013/14.

The tourism agency has also attained £43m of its four-year £50m partnership funding target, putting it “well on track” to hit its goal by the end of the 2014/15 financial year.

In 2011 the government set VisitBritain the target of delivering a £100m marketing campaign over four years, with £50m of that budget generated from partnership funding.

As well as achieving an additional visit spend of £2bn, the objectives of the ‘You’re Invited’ campaign were to attract four million additional visitors and create 50,000 new jobs.

The first seven months of 2014 were the strongest on record for inbound tourism, with 19.8m visits to Britain from January to July – an increase of 7% compared to the same period in 2013. In the whole of 2013, Britain welcomed a record 32.8 million inbound visitors and tourism revenues grew by 13% to £24bn.

Christopher Rodrigues, chairman of VisitBritain said: “Every action we take is inspired by a simple motivation: to add value to the inbound tourism industry and drive economic growth across Britain’s nations and regions. The last year has seen this happen and we want to continue that story of success and growth to achieve our ambition of 40 million inbound visitors by 2020.”