Client

 Visit Britain - 2003

Challenge

 Following the merger of the British Tourist Authority (now Visit Britain) and the English Tourism Council (now Visit England), a new focus was placed on developing domestic tourism in England. This was against a backdrop of devolution in Scotland and Wales, whose recently devolved administrations had committed considerable funds to increasing both domestic and international tourism for their countries. England was a new player on the field of domestic tourism marketing and therefore had to play catch up with considerably less funds than its UK competitors. A pioneering strategy was required to guide the marketing of England within the UK.

Solution

 A marketing strategy was developed, which established a vision and outlined the roles, responsibilities and objectives of the various organisations in the public and private sectors in England.

This identified five main strategic areas to be addressed:

• Understanding market potential and consumer motivation

• Communicating England’s appeal to those consumers who represented the country’s best prospects

• Making it easy for consumers to access information and book England

• Engaging England’s public and private stakeholders in growing domestic tourism

• Advising on product/service quality improvements and infrastructure development needs

Result

 A clear marketing strategy, which provided a roadmap for developing England’s domestic tourism – and in particular to stem the decline in English domestic tourism

• Buy-in from commercial and other stakeholders into a new approach to marketing English domestic tourism.