British Tourist Authority chair Nick De Bois is confident the UK can attract 25 per cent more visitors in five years with Australia slated as a key market to fuel visitor growth and expenditure. De Bois and Visit Britain CEO Patricia Yates sat down with Travel Weekly on the sidelines of Showcase Britain to explain how they plan to hit the magical 50 million figure.
In the 16th century, Hampton Court was a palace, hotel, theatre and vast leisure complex that symbolised the magnificence and power of the King Henry VIII, hosting lavish banquets, extravagant court life and expensive art.
Late last month, the palace was the setting for another display of strength and ambition, this time trying to woo the international travel sector to choose Britain as their travel destination of choice.
National tourism agency VisitBritain hosted more the international travel trade, with more than 120 agents and a handful of journalists sent to educational visits across the UK as part of its flagship ‘Showcase Britain’ event.
At a gala event at the famous palace located in southwest London, tourist bodies from across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland showcased some of the Kingdom’s finest tourist attractions, while teasing VisitBritain’s newest campaign that uses blockbuster film locations to draw tourists to all parts of Blighty.
In a regal sitting room on the sidelines of the show, the British Tourist Authority’s charismatic chair struck an optimistic tone that one of the world’s most visited destinations could sharply lift its tourism by nearly 25 per cent to 50 million annual visitors in only five years – a figure that tourism minister Sir Chris Bryant set minutes earlier at a lavish three course dinner.
“We’re 38.5 million visitors, so you are talking about a 25 per cent uplift to do that. It’s ambitious, but I don’t think we should apologise for ambition,” said de Bois, a former Conservative politician who now hosts a TV show called Westminster Watch.
“We know the appetite to come here is high, the challenge is to convert it and we have until 2030 to hit the minister’s target.”
VisitBritain’s Starring Great Britain campaign, above, is one of the key tactics that is being rolled out to attract visitors from five key markets: the US, Australia, France, Germany and the GCC.
It showcases iconic film and TV moments from Mission: Impossible to Bridget Jones; Spider-Man to Succession; House of the Dragon to Harry Potter; Paddington to Fast & Furious to Mary Poppins Returns and more.
“We know how effective our campaigns can be internationally. So, using the power of those TV and film that people see in their own homes and that international platform makes the campaign’s global reach much more powerful,” VisitBritain CEO Yates said.
“It also tells the stories of regional destinations. London has always been an amazing draw for Britain. Our challenge is to get people to explore outside London, outside season, and then we can spread the capacity and the economic benefits right across the UK.”
Another way VisitBritain is planning to woo visitors is by developing close ties with the travel sector through trade missions, such as the one Travel Weekly was attending.
De Bois speaks highly of another recent trade mission as a good example.
“I learned how crucial the relationship with the trade and the travel agent, the tour operator is in Australia (when I visited last September),” he said.
“In Australia, we’ve been out to something like 600 travel agents where we are doing joint educational programs to make people aware of the latest developments in the country, our latest product offerings. It’s an exceptionally close relationship and the work we’ve been doing in trade engagement, we are looking to up our game.”
Aussie interest grows
VisitBritain forecasts that around 1.3 million Aussies will visit Britain this year (up 3 per cent on 2024), spending a record £1.8 billion (AU$3.5 billion).
That would make Australia the fourth largest markets for visitors after US, Germany and France.
When asked why he is so confident that Starring Great Britain will be an attractive lure for Aussies, particularly in a year when the British and Irish Lions and English cricket team are heading Down Under, De Bois goes back to the power of film.
“The reason I’m so confident about this is that when VisitBritain ran a survey around 87 per cent of Australians want to visit some of those locations,” he said. “And they are quite literally all over the country… you’d be hard pressed not to be in a county somewhere in the United Kingdom where a film has not been shot.
“They go and look at some of the films, they’ll be popping across to Anfield in Liverpool to watch the greatest football club that you know.
“I love Australians for all sorts of reasons, but when we’re talking in this context, it’s because they stay longer than pretty much anyone else… you can even come here and enjoy some good rugby if you don’t mind watching England win.”
For various reasons – ancestral, cultural and an adventurous spirit – Australians are more likely to visit British regions outside of London than other tourists, but there is one reason why De Bois thinks Blighty is a great match: “Did you know that wherever you stand in this country, you are no more than 75 miles away from the coastline.”
Sandy coastlines was also top of mind when B&T asked Yates about the UK’s best hidden gem.
“East Anglia is so, so beautiful. Did you know we have wide sandy beaches at places like Holkham? There’s also amazing food, lots of sleepy little villages with great pubs and the charming city of Norwich,” she said.
“This is the year to visit Britain, all those amazing places that you’ve seen on screen you’ve read about, you know in your heart, now is the time to come and find them in Britain to make yourself the star of the show.”
B&T is not entirely sure too many Aussies are travelling to the UK for its beaches, but VisitBritain’s Starring Great Britain blockbuster campaign may yet prove an attractive proposition.
A version of this article first appeared on B&T’s sister title, Travel Weekly.
