The departing chief executive of UK tourism agency VisitBritain has reiterated that the British Government would be “mad” not to continue funding for the country’s Great brand campaign.
While money has been allocated until 2016, funding beyond then remains unclear ahead of a major budget review next year.
Speaking to Travel Today at the Destination Britain trade show in Kuala Lumpur, Sandie Dawe called for long term commitment to the Great campaign when budgets are set in mid-2015, also an election year in the UK.
“I don’t think there is any intention to do so, but I think they would be mad to pull the plug on Great,” Dawe said. “It has become embedded. I know from the Prime Minister to the Chancellor, they love it, they know it’s working and we have put forward evidence to show that.”
The British Government last year allocated an additional £45 million for the Great campaign for each of the next two financial years to be split between tourism, UK Trade and Investment, the Foreign Office and the British Council. All the departments use the Great branding in what Dawe described a rare example of a country adopting a “joined up” strategy to pushing a nation’s brand.
VisitBritain's share will be around £17m for both the 2014/15 and 15/16 years to fund its consumer-facing tourism drive, with Britain's countryside set to be the key focus.
But this collective approach to the Great campaign has been to the detriment of VisitBritain’s two-staff Australian operation which again misses out on funding and will be left to operate on a virtual shoestring.
VisitBritain will invest the £34m over the two years in France, Germany, US, India, China, Brazil and the Gulf. Australia’s budget – such as it is – will come from a separate £19m “core grant”.
“We have to stay aligned with UK Trade and Investment, the Foreign Office and the British Council on Great and their priorities tend to be more towards the emerging economies, so after discussions with those partners, Australia and Japan were dropped,” Dawe said.
“Many of our markets are under-resourced. We only have two people in France and that’s a massive market for us. We just can’t afford to have more people on the ground.”
Despite not receiving any funding, Dawe said Australia will benefit from centrally-generated content, imagery and digital which can all be used in local partnership programs.
“They will have a budget of say £250,000 to do match funding with partners but what they don’t have is a £2m above the line spend,” she said.
Much of that will be channeled into the global Countryside is Great campaign that will launch later this year.
VisitBritain overseas network director, Keith Beecham, admitted the Australian budget was small, which some regard as contentious given that Australia is Britain's fourth biggest market in terms of spend.
“By international standards it [the £19m core grant out of which Australia is funded] is very modest,” he said.
Dawe, who steps down as chief executive at the end of June, said that big spending competitors, including Tourism Australia, represent one of the biggest challenges facing VisitBritain, with the UK “outspent massively” in many key markets.
“Virtually everywhere we operate there is someone who is biggest and stronger. In Asia it is Tourism Australia and Tourism New Zealand. They are dominant in that part of the world," she said.
“Tourism Australia spends about 10 times what we do in China. Everywhere we look there is someone spending more than us.”
More from VisitBritain in Monday's Travel Today.
