English Tourism Week

This week (17^th – 25^th March) is English Tourism Week (ETW). The week is marked in Spring every year to celebrate the experiences available and build awareness of local and country-wide destinations.

Visit England, the national tourism agency, plays a unique role in raising Britain’s profile worldwide, increasing the value and volume of tourism and developing the visitor economy.

The week offers great marketing opportunities to create campaigns that will drive awareness of a particular destination or venue. Many attractions will offer discounts or hold events this week to generate high footfall and encourage visits from those who may not consider visiting usually.

The agency has created a dedicated ETW events platform to support and promote business events and offers available during the week. In Manchester, there is a Gin Festival being held at Victoria Baths, many hotels are offering discounted rates across the country, Bicester Village is giving away exclusive VIP passes, Rugby is offering free history tours and there is the opportunity to visit HMS Belfast and discover stories from the ship’s 80-year history! There are pages and pages of events being held all across the country – it is a great opportunity to drive footfall and support the tourism and venue industry.

There’s a social media campaign running with the hashtag #ETW18 and #BigTweetend to encourage visitors, businesses, locals, destinations, accommodation providers and attractions to share experiences, photos and comments to build further awareness of the industry!

The visitor economy is worth £106billion to England and the English tourism sector is the third largest employer, every day supporting 2.6 million jobs. It is important we do what we can to support the week and raise the profile of the industry, building awareness of the variety, accessibility and value of the current venues and events available to the local community and tourists!