The party has begun. Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) expects to see nearly 600,000 spectators arriving in the country to watch the Olympic Games, set to begin on July 27 this year. Before that, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year-round celebrations have already rolled out in the first week of June, with the parade of over a 1,000 floatillas from different parts of the country on the river Thames. Nearly a million people are expected to come out to watch the live concert which will take place in front of Buckingham Palace to celebrate 60 years of the monarch’s reign. And the anniversary list goes on – The Titanic, the Beatles, Charles Dickens. But the stakeholders of tourism in the country and neighbouring Ireland want to ensure that the visitors keep coming back for more.
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Speaking at Destination Britain & Ireland (DEBI), the business-to-business travel trade event organised by Visit Britain along with Tourism Ireland in Bangkok recently, Keith Beecham, director – overseas network, Visit Britain said, “We will definitely use the Games to showcase Great Britain. But we want to take it beyond the Games. In the first phase we launched the ‘Great Britain You are Invited’ campaign worldwide where we used seven themes – Food & Drink, Shopping, Countryside, Heritage, Sport, Culture and Films to showcase Great Britain. In the second leg, we are working with broadcasting networks to help them decide the best locations for filming the Games, etc. We are also looking at social media as it allows us to multiply our brand visibility. Incidentally India is one of our largest followers on Facebook. We will also be using cinema, hoardings and trade media to promote the destination.These promotions will continue till next March.”
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The three-day gathering, now in its 9th year, saw over 200 companies and travel industry specialists showcasing their latest travel and tourism offerings to influential buyers from the growing APMEA region. The event saw a host of seminars on food, music, shopping, culture and sport.
Opportunity: Olympic size!
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| Keith Beecham |
Great Britain will be adding 21,000 new hotel rooms in 2012 to accommodate the surge of visitors who will be making a beeline to the destination to watch the Games. “This is in addition to the 12,000 rooms we already have. And of the 21,000 rooms to be added, 9,000 of them will be in London alone. The additional capacity will be across all categories – from five-star top end- hotel chains to business and budget brands,” informed Beecham. He added that by 2013, another 13,000 rooms will be made available. “London accommodates the most number of visitors on planet Earth! And we need this as Britain offers a great mix of the old and the new and offers great value for money.”
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| Laurence Bresh |
Laurence Bresh, Britain marketing director, Visit Britain pointed out, “Yes, we are at the start of a GREAT summer like never before. And to manage that we have added 10 to 15 per cent room capacity in the last two years in all categories – three-star, mid-market, top-end. A lot of hotels have come up in East London. We also have quality hostels which offer clean and reasonably priced accommodation. And with the Para Olympics ahead, we are also doing a lot of work on hotels to make them more accessible to differently abled tourists.”
As far as air connectivity goes, Bresh said, “We do a lot of promotional activity with British Airways. We want to broaden our activities with other airlines like Emirates, Etihad Airways and maybe in 2013 with some Indian airlines as well.”
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| Paramjit Bawa |
Paramjit Bawa, regional manager – India & Middle East, Visit Britain added, “This year we invited a lot of new Indian buyers to DEBI. And being a BritAgent was part of the eligibity criteria.” BritAgent is Visit Britain’s agent training/ e-learning programme.
Emerging markets
Catherine McManus, third secretary, Embassy of Ireland was happy that the Irish visa waiver announced in July 2011 has worked wonders to increase tourist numbers to Ireland. “There has been almost 10 per cent rise in arrivals and with the Olympics around the corner we expect even more,” she said.
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| Jim Paul |
Jim Paul, head of Australia and developing markets, Tourism Ireland added, “With Ireland extending the visa waiver to October 2016, we expect our visitor numbers to increase even further. The visa waiver, which translates into a saving of 60 pound sterling per visitor, will also attract new emerging markets like India, China, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. We expect a 15 per cent increase from the APMEA market. This is an important market for us.”
India also figures greatly in Visit Britain’s future roadmap. Beecham stated, “We expect at least half a million visitors from India within five years. India has a good spread of business and leisure. Indians are very loyal. The traditional ties between the two countries and our shared history gives us the confidence to go forward. Middle East airlines also offer good connectivity from India. Our signages are in English and our smallest towns have Indian restaurants. In fact we now have a trend where restaurants serving regional Indian cuisines are being opened.”
“We have invited Karan Johar the film maker to attend the opening ceremony of the Games as a guest of Visit Britain. Of the four guests we have invited, two are Indians,” revealed Bresh.
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Ashley Jones, commercial manager, Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum said, “India is our fourth largest market. Of the total 78,000 visitors we had last year, 8,000 were Indians. This is a huge leap as in 2004 India was only our 17th biggest market.” Jones added, “India, Australia, South Africa are the three main markets that have shown a lot of growth post 9/11. I am hoping that by 2015, depending on the exchange rate, India will be our third largest market.”
The Warner Bros Studio Tour on The Making of Harry Potter which opened in March this year, has evoked a great response from tourists, both within Britain and internationally. The 120,000 sq ft studio located in Leavesden, London, houses the original sets of the iconic Harry Potter films. Sophie Havard, business development manager, Warner Bros Studio Tour informed, “The tour is a hit with a lot of domestic visitors but we are also seeing a lot of interest from Japan, France, Germany and India markets.”
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Yorkshire is also popular with Indians. “In fact, a lot of Indians live here. I feel that Indians are now more sophisticated and have more money to spend on travel,” informed Sue Lovel, international marketing manager, Yorkshire.com.
Anh Nguyen, marketing manager, Marketing Manchester, informed, “India is a key market for us. We already have direct connectivity from India into Manchester on Emirates, Etihad Airways and KLM.”
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Nimali Weerasinghe, head of leisure tourism marketing, London & Partners noted, “India still delivers the highest volume of visitor arrivals for London. It is more a leisure and high VFR segment. It is the biggest market for us with around 233,000 visitors in 2011 with a spend of 164 million pound sterling. Next is Japan. China can move to second place if its visa barriers are removed.”
A regular DEBI delegate, Matt Jones, director, global sales and marketing, Golden Tours – Strategic Partnerships agreed. “India is a growing market for everybody. And our products fit well with the Indian market. We are looking at strategic partnerships with people who we can work with, who are on the same page – a mutually beneficial agreement. At DEBI, it is good to see so many people from so many different markets,” he said.
Susan o’Brien, regional director of sales, UK and Ireland, Capella Hotel Group which manages the Lough Eske Castle Hotel in County Donegal, Ireland hoped that, “Due to the proximity of the castle (two and a half hours) to Belfast, we expect that the interest in the Titanic Belfast – the world’s largest Titanic visitor attraction which opened in March this year, will flow to the castle.”
| Indian buyers |
| It was our first time at DEBI. The event helped us source so many suppliers who meet our business requirements as well as broadened our knowledge about the destinations. – Arnab Chakraborty, Assistant Manager – Outbound Operation, Lufthansa Travel & Rentals It was my first time at DEBI. It was really worth attending and a good learning experience. It was very well organised and a great platform to meet and interact with many suppliers/hotels at one place. The interaction with each of them was very useful and fruitful for the business. We got the opportunity to learn about new places and also got ideas on how to promote these destinations. I liked the interactive seminars like food/music/sports, etc, which showed that tourism is not limited to just stay and sightseeing – it can be also be promoted differently. This was our second time at DEBI It was well organised and worth attending . We got some good operators and suppliers. This was my first DEBI.The workshop and networking events were well organised and provided the opportunity to meet with high quality operators and agents from UK and Ireland. |
