لندن – سفاري نت
Harnessing the power of social media using social celebrities from the region to inspire more visitors to come and explore what makes Britain a GREAT destination is the focus of VisitBritain’s biggest campaign for the year, Great Britain Great Moments Campaign.
The Great Britain Great Moments Campaign was launched on the 10th of February 2016, at a reception held at the Sheraton Hotel Riyadh, in attendance of Her Majesty's Deputy Head of Mission, Richard Wildash, VisitBritain’s Regional General Manager Asia Pacific Middle East, Sumathi Ramanathan, and Riyadh’s key media, tourism trade and industry representatives.
The digital marketing campaign kicked off in July 2015 with a nine-month digital and social media programme that captivates imaginations with snapshots and videos of special moments experienced by social media celebrities from the region. The aim is to inspire and encourage visitors to explore more of regional Britain and find their own amazing moments.
Her Majesty's Deputy Head of Mission, Richard Wildash said: “Every year Great Britain welcomes many Saudis to the UK for business, tourism or to study. Their pictures and stories remind us of the century of friendship between our two Kingdoms, which we are celebrating this year. The beautiful British countryside provides a wonderful backdrop and I hope that this campaign will inspire more Saudis to visit the UK, extend their trip into the countryside and continue to share their great moments there.”
The campaign’s first phase drove visitors to engage with VisitBritain’s social celebrities, directing them to a landing page with fascinating images, cinemagraphs and videos from the exciting and bespoke influencers’ trips. From Saudi, Darine El Bayedh and Moayed Althagafi challenged themselves by taking in a more adventurous thrill in Manchester, Lake District and Cardiff, whilst Yaser Bakr hit the beats at the home of the Beatles, Liverpool and enjoyed an unforgettable experiences seeing Liverpool football club play at the Ann Field stadium!
Visitors to the site http://lovewall.visitbritain.com/en/1100/%23ولا_أحلى and followers of VisitBritain’s social media accounts were also invited to share these images through their own social media channels using the hashtag #nothingnicer and, by doing so, had the chance to win a dream vacation to their favorite British countryside destination.
The second phase of the campaign gets underway in February 2016. This phase will feature a partnership with Qatar Airways to drive conversion and provide promotional offers for travellers to fly into some of the Britain’s most exciting destinations including Manchester, Edinburgh, London and the newly launched Birmingham route.
VisitBritain Regional General Manager Sumathi Ramathan said: “Britain is one of the top visited destinations for Gulf nationals. Our confidence in the market is shared by our partners and working with Qatar Airways, who has recently launched a new route to Birmingham, will allow us to showcase the regional destinations of Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and London to the wider audience that we have connected with through our influencers.”
Qatar Airways Vice President GCC, Levant, Iran, Iraq & Yemen, Ishfaq Jalal, said: “We are delighted to work together with VisitBritain to showcase to our passengers in Saudi the connectivity that Qatar Airways offers through Doha to a number of the most popular destinations in the United Kingdom. These destinations are London, Manchester, Edinburgh and our soon to be launched destination Birmingham. We will start our direct service between Hamad International Airport – Doha and Birmingham on 30 March 2016.”
Great Britain Great Moments 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.
The GCC is a valuable inbound visitor market for Britain with record numbers visiting during the first six months of 2015.
There were 576,000 international visits to the UK from the GCC in the first nine months of 2015, up 18% on the same period in 2014 with visitors spending £1.2bn, up 6%.
Tourism is Britain’s seventh largest export industry and third largest service sector. Latest forecasts from VisitBritain show that the number of overseas visitors overall to the UK is expected to rise this year to 36.7 million visits, up 3.8% on 2015.
Spending by overseas visitors overall is predicted to reach almost £23 billion this year, up 4.2% on last year.
Inbound tourism is worth more than £26 billion to the UK economy.