Listen: English Tourism Week

This week is English Tourism Week and perhaps the most important in its ten-year history with many tourist destinations and businesses hoping to welcome people back.

More than 27,000 businesses across England have signed up to VisitEngland’s ‘We’re Good To Go’ industry standard and consumer mark, reassuring customers, staff and local residents that the correct procedures and processes are in place to welcome them back safely.

VisitEngland’s latest research has shown slow but steady gains in consumer confidence in taking domestic trips from late spring and rising through summer. Its latest wave of bi-weekly research (published on 14 May 2021) showed that 33% of people it surveyed were confident in the ability to take a domestic overnight trip in May, rising to 43% in June, 55% in July, 61% in August and 66% in September. This also demonstrates the importance of extending the tourism season this year and that there is still a job to do to boost consumer confidence.

VisitEngland launched the next phase of its Escape the Everyday campaign to encourage domestic breaks with a focus also on cities and city visitor attractions as well as regional gateways, which have also been particularly hard hit by the lack of international visitors and that rely on overseas visitors and their spending.

Aston spoke to Andrew Stokes, director at VisitEngland.