Destination Britain Brings Suppliers and Buyers Together to Expand British Tourism Beyond London

Some 53 UK destination management organizations, companies, and attractions met with nearly 50 tour operators and other travel buyers from the U.S., Canada, and Brazil at this year’s Destination Britain – the Americas event at the Paradisus in Playa del Carmen.

“Tourism is fundamental to Britain’s trade success,” said Rachel Brazier, the UK’s deputy ambassador to Mexico during the opening session of the two-and-a-half-day conference. “It’s our third largest service expert and research shows that those who visit the UK are 16% more likely to invest in our business and our services.”

Of its source markets, North America is the most important. For 2025, Visit Britain estimates that 5.5 million visitors from the U.S. will visit the UK this year, spending 7.2 billion pounds.

“Four every four pounds spent by international visitors, a pound of that is spent by America,” said Patricia Yates, CEO of Visit Britain. “It [the U.S.] is hugely important for us.”

She added that the U.S. helped fuel Britain’s recovery from COVID.

“Before COVID, it was about four to five billion pounds and we’re now at 7.2, which was a stunning surprise because it was already our most valuable market and you don’t expect your most valuable market to shoot up like that,” she told TMR during a sit-down interview at the conference.

Canada is also important, and growing.

Just under one million visitors from Canada are expected, forecast to spend 942 million pounds, but Yates said that number is expected to grow as more Canadians pivot away from U.S. vacations.

Growing Britain’s Inbound Tourism (beyond London)

The UK hopes to grow its inbound tourism to 50 million visitors by 2030, the deputy ambassador said. And part of that goal is to spread that tourism beyond London, where the vast majority of visitors spend almost their entire time.

The mission at Visit Britain – and what the DMOs and DMCs spent all their time at this year’s conference doing – is to spread the word of all that England, Scotland, and Wales have to offer beyond London.

“Growing inbound tourism drives economic growth right across Britain, well beyond London,” deputy ambassador Brazier said. “I really would encourage all the operators to think beyond the South East.”

Yates emphasized this need as well.

“More than half of our international visitors do not go out side of London,” she said. “We don’t want people to come and spend two days in London and think, well, I’ve done Britain.”

“You need to get out and experience Britain. Go to a country pub, go to a different city. Eat local food. Hear local accents. Although we’re a small country, there’s huge diversity.”

The need to expose travel buyers and subsequently travel advisors to UK destinations that are considered off-the-beaten-path, such as the Peak District, Cumbria, and Durham, among other districts, drives the popularity of Destination Britain – the Americas, for both suppliers and buyers.

“We’re bringing suppliers and buyers together to extend the product that is available so that travel advisers can offer really bespoke trips that appeal to people’s passions,” Yates said.

Serving as a throughline for much of the discussion is Visit Britain’s current “Starring GREAT Britain” marketing campaign, which Visit Britain has committed to for at least three years.

The campaign focuses on the thousands of locations throughout England, Scotland, and Wales that have been used in big screen movies and TV shows, ranging from the “Harry Potter franchise” and films like “Spider-Man: Far from Home” and “Paddington” to a slew of TV shows like “Bridgerton,” “Peaky Blinders,” “Downton Abbey,” and many, many more.

Destination presentations at the conference frequently included the names of films and TV shows filmed there, and all have movie and TV-related tours that can be easily bundled into packages or booked separately.

“That’s given British destinations the confidence to build products around that and the travel trade the confidence to put that in their programs,” Yates said.