English Tourism Week, the annual week dedicated to celebrating England’s tourism industry, takes place from 14-to-23 March 2025, English Tourism Week sees the industry come together to highlight tourism’s importance to local communities and economies and promote the innovation, quality and range of products and services on offer to boost domestic breaks. Co-ordinated by VisitEngland, this year’s campaign is using the strapline ‘Supporting people and places to drive growth’ to celebrate the people, places, businesses, attractions, experiences and destinations at the heart of England’s tourism sector.
During this year’s English Tourism Week, Visit West will host its Annual Regional Visitor Economy Conference, bringing 240 contacts from the industry in the area together to hear from speakers on new developments, ways to maximise the benefits of film and tv tourism, and include a review of 2024 alongside looking forward to the remainder 2025 and beyond.
The region will also be represented at the British Tourism and Travel Show at NEC Birmingham, a large trade exhibition for domestic groups where stand sharers will meet with group organisers and encourage more visits to their businesses, as well as the region as a whole.
Visit West’s overarching strategy is to encourage people to stay longer in the region, maximising their stay by exploring what the West of England has to offer, with spend supporting high streets and small businesses in particular.
The tourism organisation’s research for 2023 outlines the biggest beneficiaries of all visitor spend (domestic and international visitors) being the retail sector (estimated £409m), food and drink businesses (£342m) and accommodation (£200m). For many businesses, this visitor spend is a critical part of their income.
Inbound international visits have seen a particular rise, as visits to the region grew by 21% to 957,000 in 2023, just 14% behind the pre-pandemic record high in 2019. Bristol is listed as the 7th most visited destination by inbound visitors, and Bath came 11th (joint with Cardiff) as combined staying visits to the region have increased in total by 2%, with an encouraging increase in spend of 7%. While the number of international day visitors is currently not tracked, it is known to have a significant impact to the sector.
Visit West’s Managing Director Kathryn Davis says: “English Tourism Week is a way to celebrate the incredible businesses and people who work tirelessly to provide a welcome and experience that celebrates the best of the region. With an estimated direct value of £2.5bn, this is a vital part of the local economy providing skilled jobs and careers, and entrepreneurial opportunities for more than 45,000 local residents.
“We have an incredible region that welcomes global visitors that invest in our high streets, and support our cultural and heritage sector. Operating conditions for businesses remain challenging and we will continue to lobby for those working in the visitor economy, and continue to develop strong routes to market through our work with the travel trade, meeting and event organisers and through our consumer channels Visit Bath and Visit Bristol.
“We are looking forward to a strong 2025 with demand from Austen 250, Women’s Rugby World Cup and VisitBritain’s national campaign Starring Great Britain celebrating film and TV locations, and are already planning for 2026 and beyond to ensure we remain competitive.”
For more details about VisitWest, visit www.visitwest.co.uk.
