Press Release 1 April 2017
Minister for Tourism Attends VisitWiltshire's Great West Way Conference During English Tourism Week
Tracey Crouch MP, Minister for Sport, Tourism and Heritage attended VisitWiltshire’s Great West Way conference, attended by 170 tourism professionals, at Grittleton House, Chippenham on Thursday 30 March 2017.
'Great West Way’ is one of a number of successful projects to benefit from the central Government funded £40m Discover England Fund and administered by VisitEngland (www.discoverenglandfund.org). The project aims to create one of the world’s premier touring routes between London and Bristol.
The purpose of the Conference was to update the industry on Great West Way activity that has taken place as part of Round 1 Discover England Fun activity, to launch the ‘England Concentrated’ brand positioning, and to seek input from the industry that will help shape the future direction of the Great West Way.
Workshop sessions focused on Bringing the Great West Way to life, What makes a Great West Way, Getting the Great West Way talked about, and Taking the Great West Way to market.
Tracey Crouch MP, Minister for Sport, Tourism and Heritage addressed the audience and said “The Great West Way offers something for everyone, whether you wish to cycle or take a canal boat, visit a heritage site or just enjoy some delicious West Country food, working together you have provided the whole tourism experience. It will give visitors a unique look into the splendour of Britain, using a variety of transport methods and encouraging them to see more than just the M4”
David Andrews, Chief Executive, VisitWiltshire said: “We’re extremely grateful to Round 1 of VisitEngland’s new Discover England Fund for the unique opportunity it has given us to develop and concept test our Great West Way idea. Our ‘England Concentrated’ brand positioning has been extremely well received with industry along the route and in our testing of international visitors and travel trade. Now the really hard work begins, developing our business plan application for further Round 2 DEF funding”.
For further information or to arrange a press visit please contact Florence Wallace, Travel Trade & PR Manager, flowallace@visitwiltshire.co.uk Tel: 01722 341309 or 07436 588860
Notes to editors:
About VisitWiltshire
VisitWiltshire is the official Destination Management & Marketing Organisation for Wiltshire representing 600 partners. It is a public/private sector membership organisation with our main funder being Wiltshire Council. VisitWiltshire's priority is to grow the county's Visitor Economy by raising awareness of the destination and generating additional tourism visits and spend. Wiltshire's Visitor Economy currently generates an estimated £1.5billion and supports over 29,000 jobs.
About the Discover England Fund
- In November 2015, the Government announced a £40 million Discover England Fund; an unprecedented opportunity for English tourism. The Fund aims to deliver world-class bookable tourism products joined up across geographies and/or themes; including integrated transport solutions to provide an end-to-end customer experience.
- The Fund supports the growth of one of England’s most successful export industries, inbound tourism. England has seen record tourism spend in the past year from both domestic and international visitors delivering economic growth and jobs across all the English regions.
- The Fund will support a number of projects and pilots in year one (2016/17) to test and develop product development approaches and a small number of large-scale collaborative projects that create a step-change in bookable English tourism product for international consumers (in years two and three - 2017-19). A smaller funding pot for new one year projects and pilots, and continuation funding for existing round one projects that can demonstrate early learnings, will also be available.
About VisitBritain/VisitEngland
- VisitBritain/VisitEngland is the national tourism agency – a non-departmental public body funded by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS)
- Working with a wide range of partners in both the UK and overseas, our mission is to grow the volume and value of inbound tourism across the nations and regions of Britain and to develop world-class English tourism product to support our growth aspirations. For further information and to access the latest in-depth market intelligence and statistics visit www.visitbritain.org or www.visitbritain.com and www.visitengland.com for consumer information.