London mayor ups visitor spend

The capital’s mayor Boris Johnson has approved an increase of nearly £750,000 to Visit London campaigns.

The extra cash is aimed at stimulating visits to the capital in the build up to Christmas and into 2009.

The additional public/private funding will take the total amount spent on promoting London in the UK and abroad to £3.25 million over the next four months.

The private/public partnership will be led by Visit London and funded by the London Development Agency.

This is expected to deliver £70 million in economic benefit to the city.

The initiative starts at the beginning of December and will be introduced across key visitor markets until the end of March 2009.

Further promotional activity in 2009 is also being planned.

Johnson said: “Tourism is massively important for jobs and growth in London.

“By continuing to promote the city both nationally and internationally, I want to ensure that London remains one of the world’s most visited destinations.”

Visit London interim CEO Sally Chatterjee said: “Despite undoubtedly tough times ahead, there are still major opportunities to promote the city to our key markets.

“London offers great experiences at amazing value and I’m delighted that we have a major programme of activity to sell our message throughout the world.”

London Development Agency chairman Harvey McGrath said: “Even in the current economic downturn, we have a great opportunity now to promote London as a world-class destination that offers first-class value for money to overseas visitors.

“We are supporting this campaign to attract new visitors and business travellers and to market London as the best possible place for people to visit, study and invest.”

Major new openings in 2009 include the Natural History Museum’s new multi-million pound Darwin Centre, ten new galleries of Medieval and Renaissance art and design at the V&A and the re-opening of the Savoy hotel after a £100 million renovation.

by Phil Davies