This week our PR team attended the virtual VisitBritain event, PR Connect. Here our Communications Executive Lucy tells us all about it…
October always brings one of the busiest days in the PR team’s calendar, as we meet face-to-face with VisitBritain managers from across the globe and pitch in Liverpool stories for the next 12 months.
We usually travel down to London for a full day of ‘speed dating’ meetings, where we catch up with colleagues from VisitBritain offices in countries including the USA, Brazil, China, India, France and Germany. This year however, things were a little different.
For the first time, PR Connect went virtual, so Joe and I embarked on a day of Zoom meetings and catch-ups with the PR managers who we work with all year round.
It gives us an invaluable chance to understand the mood and travel desires of media and consumers in some of our key markets, and keep Liverpool high on people’s radar, which is arguably more important than ever right now.
Encouragingly, the overwhelming response was that people are keen to travel to the UK, and Liverpool, once they are able to again.
In a normal year, the Marketing Liverpool PR team hosts more than 100 international press visits to the city region, often in partnership with VisitBritain.
Similar to the British press, media in most countries are focussing their efforts on domestic travel at the moment. However, there is huge pent-up demand to broaden their horizons and commission UK features as soon as they are able to travel here again, which matches consumer sentiment in their countries.
In the meantime, there has been a lot of interest in the city region – with events such as Liverpool FC’s Premier League win and John Lennon’s 80th birthday each getting international media attention in recent months.
We pitched some of our future stories and evergreen content, and will continue to send news to international media. This ensures that, even while they can’t visit, they get a picture of what’s happening in Liverpool and we build desire to come here.
It’s crucial that we continue trying to find new ways to promote Liverpool around the globe, and build demand for when it’s safe for people to travel to the UK. It was great to catch up with our VisitBritain colleagues, hear the picture from their markets and get their buy-in to continue promoting Liverpool. Hopefully next year, we will again be able to welcome journalists and bloggers from around the world to see the destination for themselves.