Britain banks on Olympic gold dust
The Olympics closed as it began, with a big British bang. The concludiing ceremonies featured a hauntingly remastered video of John Lennon singing Imagine and an emotional hand-off ceremony to the next hosts, Rio de Janeiro. The opening was an equally memorable paean to popular Brit culture starring James Bond and the Queen. Potential tourists all over the world took away a message of culture, cool and connectedness that VisitBritain and Visit England are hoping to capitalize on in the near future with their neighbor-travelers across the pond.
VisitBritain issued an official statement that said they would plan to "use the massive global exposure around the Games to encourage more people from overseas to holiday here in the years ahead."
The government agency cited 3.3 billion pounds of positive coverage of Britain in TV and print media as a driving force that would be banked on in the months ahead. VisitBritain said a consistent message of "’fun and friendliness" would be the takeaway message on Britain for viewers around the world.
Sandie Dawe, Chief Executive of VisitBritain said in a statement that now that the Games were concluded Visit Britain would be launching a major campaign with industry partners—airlines, hotels and tour operators—to offer "great deals" to secure traction from Olympic viewing.
Speaking to TravelMole (US), about post-Olympics outreach, Visit England’s regional director for North America, Emma Thomas said:
"We are delighted with the success of the Olympics and are confident that England, along with travel agents and operators, can capitalize and benefit from the huge exposure that London and the rest of the country have received globally, by harnessing the fantastic global coverage the country has seen and using this as an opportunity to generate bookings. The Olympics has provided a unique viewing platform, which has undoubtedly stimulated interest in England and we very much look forward to working in conjunction with our tourism partners and the travel trade to solidify travel business.
"We will continue to work closely with our destination partners to amplify the appeal of our tourism offerings to continue to grow the visitor economy. We know the trend to travel to a reliable and widely attractive destination is strong and our mission is to ensure that an overriding legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be through tourism."
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