Project Brighton: Julia Weeks, Member of Brighton and Hove Tourism Alliance, discusses how you can get involved with English Tourism Week

English Tourism Week is an annual nationwide campaign, organised by VisitBritain to celebrate tourism in England and highlight the value of tourism to our economy. The visitor economy is worth £106bn a year to England – it supports thousands of businesses and is the third largest employer, supporting 2.6 million jobs.

The tourism sector touches everyone – visitors, residents, businesses, employees, and is a major employer of school leavers and young people.

This year Brighton and Hove Tourism Alliance has teamed up with VisitBrighton to help promote and celebrate English Tourism Week in Brighton & Hove.

Also working with us are Brilliant Brighton (BID), Brighton & Hove Buses, Brighton Marina, Brighton Palace Pier, Brighton & Hove Hotels Association, Brighton & Hove Restaurant Association, Churchill Square and many others – making it a truly citywide collaboration!

This is the first year Brighton & Hove has collectively participated in the ETW campaign and the decision to do was only taken towards the end of January – so it’s very much all hands on deck now!
We are lucky to have use of the very colourful Brighton & Hove Sightseeing buses which have been ‘donated’ by Brighton and Hove Buses especially for English Tourism Week – these will be used as stationary information ‘hubs’ and also entertainment space. With one on the forecourt of Brighton Palace Pier and another in Ship Street – look out for a range of ‘pop up’ events and theme days, along with some photo opportunities aboard the buses!

A great welcome to the 10 million visitors a year that come to city and spend in excess of £800 million

Here are some of the events we have lined up and it would be fantastic if more organisations and businesses want to get involved: VisitBritain’s website gives details about this as well as 101 suggestions about possible activities – some sounding a lot easier than others!

Saturday 25 March (11am) – Join the Mayor of Brighton and Hove and some of his 27 charities at Brighton Palace Pier for the official opening of English Tourism Week in the city.
Saturday 25 March (2pm) – ‘The Big Brighton Fringe Variety Bus’ New Road. This will be an afternoon of free Brighton Fringe performances – expect choirs, comedy, cabaret and more from England’s largest arts festival!
Saturday 01 / Sunday 02 April (10-30am – 4.30pm) – Brighton Marina Boat Show Weekend. A weekend of boats, exhibitions, entertainment and Marina life!

As well as events there will be promotions, competitions and special offers from Tourism Alliance and Visit Brighton members, and our other partners.

I’m so pleased with our promotion poster [on the inside front cover of this issue of Latest Homes] for English Tourism Week – it was designed by Charlotte Barrow from the Visit Brighton team and it’s such a great image for the city, and has been really well received by everyone that has seen it.

We’re hoping people will share it, and if possible also display it as a show of support to the many people from around the world working in Brighton and Hove’s tourism, hospitality, retail, and support sectors who work so hard to provide a great welcome to the 10 million visitors a year that come to the city and spend in excess of £800 million during their time here.

As part of English Tourism Week, we’re also inviting Brighton & Hove residents, businesses and visitors to join in our #patontheback campaign on Twitter: using the hashtags #patontheback #etw17 #Brighton (or #Hove) and giving the name of the individual, business, or organisation that should receive a ‘pat on the back’ and the reason why.

To find out more about English Tourism Week and how you or your business can get involved go to www.visitbritain.org/english-tourism-week
To keep up to date with what’s happening as part of English Tourism Week in Brighton & Hove follow us on Twitter @BrightonTourism and
@Love_Brighton under the hashtag #etw17 and from 17th March – 2nd April check out the dedicated webpage at www.visitbrighton.com/english-tourism-week