BRITISH TOURIST AUTHORITY TRADING AS VISITBRITAIN ...

VisitBritain and VisitEngland
Annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 st March 2010
Awards and successes
As well as the IIP and the World Travel Award already mentioned, VisitBritain received numerous awards and accolades from
independent bodies, including World Travel Awards 2010: Nomination for Europe's Leading Tourism Board and the Group Travel
Award for Best Online Information.
VisitBritain’s Twitter account, which has a following of over 8,000 and an online reach of up to 3.2 million, was awarded the accolade
of best National Tourist Board (NTB) Twitter account by the Times Online. Meanwhile the ‘Visit the other Britain’ campaign - which
aims to help VisitBritain ‘get down’ with the kids in south east Asia – received a Silver Best at the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s
annual Travel Marketing Awards. Less ground-breaking but equally robust was the 'See Britain in Style' partnership campaign with
British Airways which received a Gold Award for the Best National Tourist Board Ad Campaign.
On the business visits and events side, Britain for Events Film received the ITB Berlin Film Award, Joss Croft was named Industry
Personality of the Year at the Meetings and Incentive Travel Awards, and Britain received the best stand award at the TUR
exhibition.
VisitEngland
As outlined in the report for 2008/09, a wide-ranging review of tourism in Great Britain, The British Tourism Framework Review
(BTFR) - undertaken at the request of the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport - recommended that VisitEngland
should be put in a position where it could operate independently from VisitBritain. VisitBritain therefore worked with VisitEngland to
establish an 'arms-length' relationship to the extent possible within the existing statutory and funding framework.
From 1st April 2009, although the VisitEngland executive team remains a part of VisitBritain for funding and governance purposes, it
now has its own Chief Executive who reports directly to the Chairman of the VisitEngland Board. Accountability to the Board and
Chief Executive of VisitBritain is exercised primarily through a Funding Agreement put in place between VisitBritain and VisitEngland
and a Memorandum of Understanding was developed to record the detailed corporate governance arrangements. In legal terms,
this new organisation is styled the British Tourist Authority Trading as VisitEngland.
Strategic Development for England
Penelope, Viscountess Cobham was appointed Chairman of the VisitEngland Board from April 2009, succeeding Hugh Taylor OBE,
who had led the England Marketing Advisory Board since 2003. This corresponded with the end of the terms of office of Board
members John Govett, Nick Cust OBE, and Suzanne Bond and observers Ros Pritchard OBE, Bob Cotton OBE, and Sue Wilkinson
whose valuable contributions are gratefully acknowledged. During the year in discussion the continuing board members were joined
by Nick Varney, CEO Merlin Entertainments; David Orr, CEO and Founder of City Inns; Dennis Wormwell, CEO Shearings Holidays.
In addition to the creation of VisitEngland, a further recommendation of the BTFR was the development of a strategy to drive
England’s visitor economy. 2009 therefore became a year of transition for VisitEngland as it shaped its structure to better support
this strategic role, a position strengthened in July when James Berresford took up the post of VisitEngland CEO, joining from the
North West Regional Development Agency where he was Tourism Director.
Following extensive consultation with industry and through the Partners for England Forum, in March 2010 England: A Strategic
Framework for Tourism 2010-2020 and its accompanying Action Plan was launched at the Best of Britain and Ireland Show. The
first national strategy of its kind, the framework lays out the action which must be taken if England is to grow its market share and
ensure the English economy benefits fully from the opportunities tourism offers – namely economic prosperity, employment and
social well-being.
The framework calls for a collaborative approach across the public and private sector, optimising spend and maximising efficiencies.
It aims to achieve four interdependent objectives:
To increase England’s share of global visitor markets
To offer visitors compelling destinations of distinction
To champion a successful, thriving tourism industry
To facilitate greater engagement between the visitor and the experience
thus delivering the overall objective of a year on year 5% growth in value to create £50bn of additional expenditure and some
225,000 jobs.
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