Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has unveiled a new British tourism marketing campaign which will see the New York Subway, Paris Metro, and 100 taxis across Delhi draped with the Union flag.

A series of GREAT images will also form part of the campaign, designed to encourage more international visitors to the UK.

The initiative will be rolled out in New York from Monday.

It will see the inside and outside of a New York subway train wrapped in the GREAT branding, and adverts blitzed across key transit hubs including Grand Central and Stamford stations.

VisitBritain’s GREAT campaign aims to attract an extra 4.6 million extra visitors to the UK over the next four years, securing an additional £3 billion in visitor spend.

The campaign will target nine countries worldwide, with adverts appearing in 14 key cities around the world: Beijing, Berlin, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Mumbai, New Delhi, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Sydney, Tokyo, and Toronto.

Around 70 per cent of the population in each of the target cities will see the advertising on billboards, TV, or in the cinema.

Secretary of state for culture, Olympics, media and sport Jeremy Hunt said: “We are taking the fight for the tourist pound right to our competitors’ doorsteps, with a sales assault on the 14 biggest and most lucrative tourism markets around the world.

“Right across the world, there will be no escape from the message that Britain is great.”

The international reach of the campaign will be strengthened by the announcement today of a global partnership between VisitBritain and Yahoo!, one of the world’s most visited homepages.

This aims to drive over five million views of VisitBritain content on the Yahoo! network and help drive 3.5 million visits to VisitBritain’s own online platforms.

Rich Riley, senior vice president, Yahoo! EMEA said: “We are really excited to have been chosen as VisitBritain’s digital display partner.

“This will be their largest ever online campaign and Yahoo! has a strong track record of delivering original global media campaigns with seamless digital content and advertising.

“Our campaign for VisitBritain will be as individual as those consumers who interact with it - helping demonstrate why we all think Britain is so great,” he concluded.