DRHarrogate: On May 8-10, 2019 VisitBritain welcomed hundreds of international visitors from countries across the globe to Harrogate for its largest trade event – ExploreGB, now in its fifth year. The event brought together over 310 UK suppliers and over 230 international buyers for 25,000 one-to-one business meetings. Alongside the main event consisting of pre-scheduled 1-2-1 meetings with UK suppliers and a gala evening, VisitBritain hosted 18 international trade journalists who took part in a dedicated media programme.
VisitBritain launches TXGB, a one-stop exchange allowing suppliers to connect directly to a range of distributors (GDS, DMCs, wholesalers, DMOs, aggregators and the like)
The media group travelled with buyers from markets, including India, US, Canada, Brazil, France, Australia, GCC, Italy, Japan and South Korea. Upon arrival, the group were greeted at Harrogate’s own Slingsby’s Gin Room, where they experienced a taste of North Yorkshire’s local gin and were taken through stories of the town and the history of the spirit. To help tell the story of Harrogate, the group were treated to a VIP dinner at Betty’s Café Tea Rooms where they tasted local British fare in the Imperial Room overlooking the town – a venue fit for media as the renowned Yorkshire restaurant celebrates 100 years this year.
After a warm welcome, the media programme commenced the following day with morning and afternoon presentations from destination partners, including Visit Wales, VisitScotland, Tourism Northern Ireland, Welcome to Yorkshire as well as key VisitBritain representatives Carol Dray – Commercial Director, VisitBritain & VisitEngland; Gareth Roberts – Planning & Delivery Manager, VisitEngland and Richard Nicholls – Head of VisitBritain Research.
To complete the media programme, journalists split into three groups to explore Harrogate and the surrounding areas of Harrogate District, Ripon, Masham and Nidderdale. All three FAM trip itineraries focused on English gardens and the outdoors with tours to RHS Harlow Carr Gardens, Newby Hall & Gardens, Ripon and How Stean Gorge. To soak in all the flavours and local produce of Harrogate, some of the media enjoyed lunch at Michelin star restaurant The Yorke Arms by chef Frances Atkins – one of the very few female Michelin Starred Chefs in the UK. Others tasted the local food and independently brewed beer at North Yorkshire’s Black Sheep Brewery or went back to Betty’s Café Tea Rooms for a quintessential British afternoon tea. To end on a relaxing note, journalists also had the chance to explore the historic Turkish Baths or the luxurious 5-star Swinton Estates Hotel.
Welcoming the gathering, VisitBritain/ VisitEngland CEO Sally Balcombe said 2019 is a watershed year for the UK, a destination where the economic impact of tourism is a whopping £120 billion. 2019 also marks the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Queen Victoria, 100th Anniversary of British Airways and 50th Anniversary of British Tourist Authority (BTA). England and Wales is also playing host to the 12th edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup from 30 May to 14 July.
Carol Dray unveiled Tourism Exchange GB (TXGB), an online B2B Sales platform. She said the focus of TXGB is on distribution allowing suppliers to connect directly to a range of distributors. “We are not competing with OTAs but complementing them,” she clarified. Distributors and consumers have access to inventory – accommodation, tours, attractions, experiences and transport. “In the travel distribution ecosystem of agents, aggregators and suppliers, TXGB will sit between the last two,” she said.
TXGB is a one-stop exchange where suppliers join for free. The platform facilitates real-time sharing of information, offers comprehensive sales reports, 24×7 support and access to distributors and VisitBritain marketing activities. “We are helping smaller businesses grow by connecting with aggregators (GDS, DMCs, Wholesalers, DMOs, accommodation aggregators, experience aggregators and the like). Consumers will connect with TXGB through Expedia and others,” Dray explained. From June to December on-boarding of products and suppliers have been scheduled and by March 2020 over 5000 suppliers and 150,000 products will be made accessible on TXGB.
Last year in October, VisitBritain had launched an Inbound Tourism Toolkit called ‘Taking England to the World’, a platform targeting Tourism Businesses and Destination Marketing Organisations, covering key foundations required for growing business in international markets.
“More than 50 per cent of visitors to the UK only visit London and believe they have seen Great Britain,” said Garreth Roberts. The DEF (Discover England Fund) was created to support the development and distribution of England’s world-class tourism products as bookable and commissionable tourism offerings in line with market demands and trends. In the last three years, considerable efforts have gone into this initiative. 66 projects have been supported; over 1000 new products created and more than 1000 products reimagined for travel trade by involving 76 DMOs and more than 3000 tourism businesses.
Richard Nicholls shared inbound tourism trends. According to the research, inbound tourism has dipped in 2018 from 2017 high point. Provisional data for 2018 reads 38.7 million visits and £22.7 billion spend. Holidays fell 2 per cent but that followed a 11 per cent increase in 2017; Business visits and visits to friends and relatives (VFR) both down 3 per cent; Arrivals from Europe down 4 per cent; Arrivals from long-haul markets down 2 per cent but still 10 per cent up on 2016 after a bumper 2017; Holiday visits almost doubling in 15 years; After dining out and shopping, major cultural attractions are the most popular holiday activities; Almost half of holiday visitors go to the pub; Parks or gardens are also popular amongst holiday visitors.
Commenting on prospects for 2019, Nicholls said visits are forecast to grow 3 per cent to 38.8 million and spending to grow 8 per cent to £24.9 billion. Inbound visits in January 2019 was up 6 per cent on 2018 and flight bookings data suggests good prospects for visits from Americas, China and India though some nervousness exists amongst Europeans to book in early 2019.
India is a Priority Market for the UK
In an exclusive chat with Destination Reporter on the sidelines of ExploreGB, Steve Ridgway, Chairman, British Tourist Authority (BTA) spoke about his plans for the Indian market.
How do you see the next 3-5 years and how will the India market perform?
This year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the creation of the BTA. Probably BTA was the first national tourism board globally. In 1969 we had 5 million FTAs and in 2018 we were at 39 million. The surge in visitors has been fuelled by globalisation, emerging middle class in many source markets, ease of getting here and direct air links thanks to aviation opening up in the last two decades.
In the next five years, Indian economy will grow further and many more Indians will travel and UK will attract a lot of them. We want to build destinations beyond London, bring them to Northern England and also focus on products like sports and shopping as well since that is what the youngsters are looking for.
In India, long-haul travel is booked majorly through travel agents unlike in the West. What kind of investments do you plan to grow the India market? There is widespread concern amongst trade that a lot more needs to be done.
India is a priority market for the UK. We call it one of our ‘great markets’. The booking pipeline June to August 2019 is 24 per cent up YoY. Post the financial crisis, the austerity measures which kicked in have impacted spending. Later this year, we are doing a spend review. We want to be as bullish as we can be in India along with our partners.
Visa is the single biggest hurdle to growing tourism from India to the UK. Why cannot India be offered the same two-year visit visa scheme as the one extended to China?
This issue has been slightly blown out of proportion. We have 14 visa offices in India – more than in any other country. So the visa application process for Indian travelers is seamless. The UK Government is proactive in having a more forward-looking visa scheme for India. Once Brexit is over and with technology changing faster than we all can imagine, you will see a more pragmatic visa regime in the near future.
Manchester Looking Forward to Hosting Indian Cricket Fans
Tim Manley
Marketing Manager, Marketing Manchester
For a long time, the city has been big on exhibitions and conferences. Now we are becoming attractive for leisure and incentive tourism. We are the third most visited city in the UK after London and Edinburgh. We welcome 1.3 million international visitors. Manchester Airport is the busiest airport outside London – 27 million passengers a year. We have excellent connectivity via the Gulf – Emirates flies three times daily; Qatar Airways twice daily; Etihad twice; Oman Air daily; Ethiopian; Finnair and others. A major redevelopment programme of Manchester Airport is underway.
Why Manchester?
- Sports – Manchester United FC and Manchester City FC, the current Premier League champions. Both clubs have fantastic visitor experience products. MCFC has a new AR product launched recently. India vs Pakistan match will be played on 16 June at Emirates Old Trafford. They don’t have a stadium tour product yet.
- Shopping – all international brands. Out of town shopping center intuTrafford Center is just 20 min from city centre; Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet is an hour away. New Cathedral Street has all the high-end luxury stores in one place – this is unique.
- City life: Over 500 bars and restaurants; over 30 international cuisines; outside town is Curry Mile – over 100 Indian, Ethiopian and Lebanese restaurants. Halal and vegetarian menus available; fab night life
- 3-4 days perfect to see Manchester. But also great place to base yourself and experience rest of North England – Liverpool, York, Lake District and Harrogate. Even London is only two hours by train.
Ever since we started promoting in India, we see huge rise in number of visitors to Manchester. Cox & Kings and SOTC are now selling packages starting or finishing in Manchester. We are seeing 1,00,000 visits into Manchester from India. This is incredible considering two years ago that number was tiny.
Cricket this year is hugely important for us. We are doing few different things around cricket. Hosting the biggest game in world sport so Manchester is on international stage. A promotional video on Manchester will be shown in every country watching the ICC Cricket World Cup. We are expecting 80,000 people or more from India alone. We are inviting some of the biggest travel trade leaders from India to watch the game and undertaking an educational workshop. Festivities include a concert by Guru Randhawa – singer, songwriter and music composer associated with Punjabi, Bhangra, Indi-pop and Bollywood music.
In 2019 we are collaborating with a major travel trade player for a strategic partnership – the name will be out soon. We are also working with DMCs who know North England so that our partners in India can benefit. End of August we are doing a roadshow in India – Mumbai, Delhi and Pune (GPS).
Go Cycling, Taste Gin at Yorkshire
Michelle Brown
Marketing Manager – Leisure, VisitYork
After Yorkshire became the Grand Depart for Tour de France in 2014, it launched Tour de Yorkshire in 2015. Hence, Yorkshire is the place to visit for leisure cycling holidays. We have created six cycling packages (5-6-7 day itineraries) including meet & greet, bike & gear hire, accommodation, transfers, F&B and the like. As a destination we are doing very well in markets like Holland and Germany. Some of the exciting experiences Indian travelers may find interesting are Gin distilleries where you can create your own gin and take home a bottle; Curry Mile in Bradford featuring many Indian restaurants; and the York Chocolate Story where one can learn about the history of chocolate, how it was made and even sample some. The National Railway Museum is another never-to-be-missed. Reaching York is easy, be it from London or Manchester – direct train takes two hours.
The Romantic Harrogate
Richard Spencer
CEO, Visit Harrogate
Harrogate has been voted the third most romantic destination in the world, beating Paris, Vienna and Rome in a Top Ten list by Secret Escapes from its database of 3 million users. We have so many gardens and two flower shows in a year. There are 12 large hotels around the city centre. You can walk around town in less than 20 minutes. We are a spa town famous for the Turkish baths.Apart from the Harrogate Convention Centre, every tourist attraction can take MICE business. From India, this business is really picking up and we want more. Our kitchens are happy to have Indian chefs take over proceedings for visiting MICE groups. We have three good Indian restaurants. The Indian delegation at ExploreGB visited one of them, Cardamom Black, and they had excellent reviews to share. From London it takes two hours to York and then 20 minutes to Harrogate by train; Manchester to York by train is an hour and another 20 minutes to Harrogate.
Explore Leeds, the City Just Waiting to be Discovered
Emma Broadhurst
Business Development Manager, VisitLeeds and ConferenceLeeds
This year we are hosting four ICC Cricket World Cup games at Headingley stadium. So we will get lot of visitors from India especially for the India – Sri Lanka game on 6 July. I am sure it will help get Leeds into the minds of Indian travelers. Leeds would definitely suit those who are looking for a city just waiting to be discovered which isn’t on the usual ‘bucket list’ of places to visit in the North of England. Just to summarise about how easy Leeds is to visit; it is half way between London and Edinburgh, 25 minutes from York and only an hour from Manchester and the airport by road or rail making it a perfect place to explore as part of a UK tour or as part of a tour of the North of England. We have plenty of blue badge guides offering themed tours and a short distance away from the city is Haworth home to the Brontes and world famous Betty’s Cafe Tea Room is situated in Ilkley and Harrogate – both towns are only 25 minutes from Leeds.
If you’re looking for a city destination with a difference which has Victorian arcades to rival those in Milan or Budapest and one of the Treasure Houses of England Harewood House on the doorstep and sister museum to The Tower of London The Royal Armouries, then please consider coming to see for yourself what we can offer. We have all the usual British restaurant brands, including The Ivy, pubs dating back to the 1700s and we are the only city outside London to have four D&D restaurants with a wide variety of hotel stock, including Dakota Deluxe.
