After last year’s Belfast event was cancelled due to the pandemic, VisitBritain’s flagship Explore GB event has been taking place this week in the virtual world instead.
The event has shifted from the traditional face to face meetings format to being completely virtual – bringing xx suppliers together with xx buyers from around the world to meet and do business.
Incredibly around xx meetings will have taken place this week and Liverpool city region has had excellent representation with Marketing Liverpool and tourism partners RLB360, Titanic Hotel, Beatles Story, Cavern CIty Tours, Liverpool FC, Stay, Strawberry Field, Mersey Ferries and Experience the North all taking part.
From Marketing Liverpool’s perspective the event has been the ideal opportunity to reconnect with the international travel trade – tour operators, wholesalers, online travel agencies and destination management companies.
These contacts are looking to place new business in 2022 and beyond so it is an excellent way to invest our time as part of the tourism recovery process for the city region.
This year we have seen interest from the USA, Australia, China, India, Japan, Brazil and the key European markets with Marketing Liverpool completing over 70 virtual meetings.
An interesting meeting was with Alberto Bacarin from Brazil’s FRT Tour with his Beatles’ arm tatoo!
Buyers are reporting a pent-up demand for international travel with requests for new experiences and activities.
The meetings have been the ideal platform to profile and update on our key themes of music, sport and culture together with new emerging products like Shakespeare North Playhouse, Eureka!, Melia INNSIDE and also outdoor activities and the World Gymnastics Championships.
For more information on overseas activity please contact James Wood jwood@marketingliverpool.co.uk.