Olympic Games UK2012 has UK tourism got its ducks in a row?

SEE VIDEO INTERVIEW CLICK HERE

Two years before the actual Olympics kick off the clock is ticking, has UK tourism got its marketing on schedule?

Open Weekend 2010, from 23-25 July, will include hundreds of events across the UK. But that is just the visible side of the UK Olympic effort. Behind the scenes a massive marketing effort has begun to make all the Olympic goodies available for UK tourism sustainable.
 

The man in charge of the Olympic tourism initiative to bring in, and keep, the £2bn plus of extra tourism revenue is Chris Foy. He talks to TravelMole about the plans SEE VIDEO
 

The new marketing campaign fund worth £1bn to help British tourism make the most of the London 2012 Games will target Britain’s 20 priority markets in the years around 2012. It will learn the lessons from other global events in the past such as the Olympics in Barcelona and Sydney, Germany and South Africa’s hosting of the World Cup plus, of course Vancouver.
 

A major part of the campaign is the ‘staycation’  to increase the proportion of domestic tourism spend by UK residents to 50%."
 

Amongst the initiatives already instituted to counteract possible negative perceptions is the Fair Price and Practice Charter, a voluntary code of practice with the support and input of key events industry trade and marketing bodies, stakeholders and relevant delivery agencies.
 

Look out also for ‘Reasons to buy Britain’ – Visit Britain is working on great reasons to buy Britain for both the global travel trade, and visitors booking direct.
 

Another major message being pushed out globally is the fact that not only is London quite enormous in its hotel capacity, but also a special Olympic city is in process being built so the capital will have plenty of accommodation to go around – it’s almost impossible for London to be full.
 

A new trade-related website is also now in operation: www.tourism2012games.org that provides opportunities and information for both the inbound tourism industry in the UK and potential worldwide partners.
 

But, by far the biggest tourism marketing investment so far has been the ground-breaking new website that gives customers from around the world a unique opportunity to be inspired to come to Britain.
 

www.VisitBritain.com will be VisitBritain’s main platform for communicating with its customers, focusing on serving up dynamic and personalised content tailored to the country the visitor comes from and written in their language.

The site is a key part of VisitBritain’s innovative digital strategy using social media, online content and mobiles to enthuse potential visitors to Britain. With 95% user generated image content throughout, the engaging new version of visitbritain.com will provide an immersive, multilingual online experience, including the latest social media platforms and magazine-style travel features which will showcase the wonderful experiences Britain has to offer the overseas visitor.
Social media has become so crucial in the way families decide which holiday to go on, that syndication and aggregation are enabled within the site so that all content is available across a wide range of travel sites and blogs.
 

Engaging photo galleries that bring to life Britain’s diversity of people, places, cultures and activities will be enabled via Flickr. Visitors will also be able to see how easy it is to explore Britain by means of maps presented throughout the website alongside inspiring videos and images.
 

Look out for more to come in the run up to, and the run-down from, tourism Olympics 2012.
 

Valere Tjolle
Valere Tjolle is editor of the Sustainable Tourism Report Suite, special offer at: www.travelmole.com/stories/1142003.php