Today at World Travel Market in London, VisitEngland announced plans to launch eight marketing campaigns in 2013 to run from January to boost domestic tourism next year. 

The campaigns will cover the four key themes of countryside, heritage, culture and coastal, and will run in partnership with destinations from all over England as well as national commercial organisations.

The themed campaigns will run on radio, in newspaper supplements, and via social media and PR. 

Funded by £2million from the Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF) plus contributions from partners, these campaigns provide a cost effective opportunity for English destinations to inspire more domestic visitors next year.

The themes were informed by research undertaken by VisitEngland which found there was still a great lack of knowledge of the type of holidays on offer in England and a thirst for local inspiration.

Business minister Michael Fallon said: “I’m pleased to see that the Regional Growth Fund is supporting VisitEngland and its partners to boost tourism and create over 9,000 jobs over three years in our cultural and heritage-rich communities up and down the country.

“The world saw that we could put on a good show from hosting the Olympics and it is important that we capitalise on this in rebalancing the economy and building an aspiration nation.”
 
This marketing activity is phase two of a three-year investment project called ‘Growing Tourism Locally’. 

Funded by £19.8million from the RGF, the project aims to generate £365million in additional tourism spend over the three year period and inspire more Britons to take more holidays at home. 

The project should help to stimulate employment to grow jobs in the tourism sector by 9,100 over the three years.

The total investment of the three-year campaign will be approximately £41m including £19.8m from the Regional Growth Fund, £9m from VisitEngland, £12m leveraged from the national and local tourism sector.