UK. VisitBritain’s £4 million ($7.4 million) campaign to persuade western Europeans to take short breaks in the UK resulted in a +19% increase in visitor numbers for November 2003.
In November 1.45 million visitors from western Europe came to the UK, with the September to November total coming in at 4.2 million.
The +10% improvement on the same period last year is the best ever for the quarter.
Launched in September 2003, the campaign highlighted 19 UK cities in 11 European countries with a dedicated web site for each country.
The year to date (YTD) figure for western European visitors is +5% ahead at 14.8m.
However, traffic from North America fell back in November, with a -0.3% year-on-year drop to 260,000. The September to November quarter was +4% ahead with a total of 970,000, while YTD was currently -7% shy at 3.7 million.
VisitBritain chief executive Tom Wright is confident that the organisation will meet its targets from both visitor numbers and spend. With December’s figures to come, the total number of inbound visitors is +2% ahead against a target of +1.9%, while the cash spent by the visitors currently stands at £10.8bn, +1% ahead of last year against a target of +1.5%.
