VisitBritain aiming to boost tourism from India

National tourism agency VisitBritain has launched a major campaign to inspire more visitors from India to visit the UK.

The #OMGB (Oh My GREAT Britain) ‘Home of Amazing Moments’ marketing campaign will feature a seven-week paid digital and billboard campaign to showcase the amazing moments that can only be had on a trip to Britain.

Sumathi Ramanathan, VisitBritain’s director Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa (APMEA), said: “There are so many great things going on across our nations and regions this year from literary anniversaries to major sporting events.

“By showcasing the incredible experiences on offer we want to inspire even more visitors from India to come and discover their own amazing moments. It is a great time to come to Britain.”

The campaign creative, which includes images and a video filmed on locations across the UK, will appear online, on social media and on billboards in Delhi and Mumbai including at CyberHub, a main commercial area in Delhi, and at Mumbai’s Haji Ali Main Junction.

Tactical offers

VisitBritain is also working with partners to launch tactical offers and create tailored destination content to build on the momentum of the ‘Home of Amazing Moments’ campaign and drive bookings from India to the UK.

Britain’s visitor attractions, hotels and shops all offer good value for Indian travellers at the moment – at the end of January the UK was 13 per cent more affordable for visitors from India than it was the same time last year.

Flight booking data from ForwardKeys shows that bookings from India to the UK for the first six months of 2017 are up two per cent compared to the same period last year.

The latest quarterly figures show that from July to September 2016 there were 139,000 visits from India to the UK, on par with the same period the previous year, with Indian visitors spending £142 million, up 14 per cent on the same period in 2015.

The #OMGB ‘Home of Amazing Moments’ marketing campaign is part of the UK Government’s global GREAT Britain campaign, which showcases the very best of what Britain has to offer as a place to visit, study and do business.

VisitBritain’s forecast for 2017 shows that overall inbound tourism growth is set to continue with 38.1 million visits, up four per cent on 2016 which is likely to see about 36.7 million visits by year-end. Spending by overseas visitors is predicted to reach £24.1 billion in 2017, an eight per cent increase on spending last year.