Welcome to our fortnightly e-bulletin packed with information about what the North East England Regional Tourism Team have been up to.

UK Marketing Activity »
International Marketing Activity »
Travel Trade »
Tourism Development Unit »
Visitor Services Unit »
Tourism North East online »

UK MARKETING ACTIVITY

Visit Friends and Relatives Campaign

Next week will see the launch of the region's first Visit Friends & Relatives (VFR) campaign.

Launched to coincide with British Tourism Week, the campaign will target people within North East England and encourage them to become ambassadors for the region by inviting their friends and family from the UK and abroad to visit the North East during 2007.

Tactical activity will be mainly PR focused and e-based, including an interactive postcard which can be downloaded and forwarded to friends and relatives. The campaign will be supported by Tourist Information Centres where people will be able to pick up a newspaper listing 1001 interesting facts about North East England.

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INTERNATIONAL MARKETING ACTIVITY

North East England to reach almost one million Dutch newspaper readers

On the 6 April North East England will feature in a Britain Newspaper supplement in partnership with P&O ferries and a number of British destinations. The supplement will appear in the national daily Dutch newspapers AD and Volkskrant with a combined circulation of 890,000. North East England has designed a full page advertorial promoting a three-day touring itinerary featuring the many highlights of the region. It is hoped that the supplement will also include additional editorial and images of the region. The advertising also includes a coupon allowing readers to order the Dutch taster guide and map of the region.

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TRAVEL TRADE

British Travel Trade Fair

The Travel Trade department will be attending the British Travel Trade Fair (BTTF) on Tuesday 13th – Wednesday 14th March, and will be celebrating the launch of the new 2007 Hidden Benefits incentive booklet. The chequebook-sized offer book is packed with special offers from across the North East, including free wine with lunch bookings and reduced rates for group travellers.

The show is expected to see more than 2400 national and international travel buyers pass through the doors; and together with Visit Britain, North East England will be hosting a delegation of international buyers from Holland. Partners on the stand will include the four Area Tourism Partnerships, together with Steve Reed Tourism, Beamish, The North of England Open Air Museum, Hadrian’s Wall Country, Woodhorn, Alnwick Castle and The Alnwick Garden.

If you would like to meet us at the show, North East England can be found on stand N300 or for more information on BTTF visit www.britishtraveltradefair.com. For any other group travel enquiries please contact Chris Amson.

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TOURISM DEVELOPMENT UNIT

Converting Guides to Visitors

Visitors who received the North East England Holiday and Short Breaks Guide 2006 spent £32.5 million in the region in 2006 with £7.3 million directly attributable to the guide. A third of visitors who received the guide went on to visit the region during the year spending an average 4.6 nights. Visitors to the region were profiled using the Arkenford segmentation model with the most common visitor to the North East being Cosmopolitans. The full report will be available on www.tourismnortheast.co.uk in the next week.

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VISITOR SERVICES UNIT

An informal lunch near you…

One NorthEast Tourism and eviivo are holding a series of informal lunches to help businesses realise the full benefits of offering online booking and how Desti.ne can help. Businesses will meet users of the system face-to-face and see a no obligation demonstration of the 3 eviivo products (Frontdesk, Frontdoor and Frontrow). Case studies from local businesses will show how the software has helped them manage room/ticket availability and booking, improve check-in/check-out, billing, customer contact as well as taking advantage of the growing number of distribution channels. The latest distribution channel to go live, lastminute.com, puts participating businesses in front of 10,000 potential customers every hour looking to book short breaks, longer holidays and business travel. The addition of this channel at the beginning of February has significantly increased the total daily average value for online bookings via Desti.ne to: £1,865.57.

The dates for the informal lunches are:

To book your place contact Martyn Collins, from Eviivo by e-mail: mailto:Martyn.Collins@eviivo.com

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FIND OUT MORE

If you would like to find out more on tourism in the region, visit www.tourismnortheast.co.uk - a dedicated website for the tourism industry in North East England.

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