Tourism

VisitBritain is launching Tourism Exchange Great Britain (TXGB), an online platform to connect tourism suppliers with distributors globally.

Suppliers like accommodation providers, attractions, and tour planners will be able to show their product, availability, pricing and bookings for distirbutors (such as online agents). 

Watch the infomercial for the new platform below. The platform is set to launch later in the year but you can register your interest here.

Hull City Council has revealed £27.5m plans to renovate the 2017 UK City of Culture's maritime attractions.

The plan includes:

• The Maritime Museum
• North End Shipyard
• Arctic Corsair
• Spurn Lightship
• Dock Office Chambers
• Creation of a new maritime route from Queen Victoria Square to the River Hull.

Hull City Council expects the revamp to bring in 300,000 visitors and generate £2.9m in income. The council is set to invest £10m and has applied for a £15m National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) grant.

VisitBritain has opened funding applications dedicated to the development of international business events in the UK for its fourth year in a row.

In 2018, the Business Events Growth Programme (formerly the Event Support Programme) awarded £173,000 to new and existing events, increasing international delegate attendance and profile to help support UK destinations and venues.

Funding is open to applications from convention bureaus, destination management organisations or event venues and organisers including universities and associations.

VisitBritain's annual travel trade event for the tourism industry now in its fifth year, opens 8–10 May 2019.

VisitBritain is gearing up to host its annual flagship travel trade event to sell destination Britain to the world.

ExploreGB takes place in Harrogate, Yorkshire where more than 250 international travel buyers from 31 countries will do business with more than 320 tourism suppliers.

ArtFund has chosen its five nominees for Museum of the Year 2019, including one from each of the devolved nations. The winner will receive £100,000.

The nominees are:

• HMS Caroline, Belfast
• Nottingham Contemporary
• Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
• St Fagan's National Museum of History, Cardiff
• V&A Dundee

Read more about each of the nominees here.

Dundee has benefitted from Scotland's first museum of design, V&A Dundee, since its opening in September 2018 with a boost in visitor numbers.

V&A Dundee has welcomed more than 340,000 people in its first three months of operation. Other cultural venues in the area that have benefitted from the new musuem include:

Discovery Point – site of the Antarctic-exploring RSS Discovery ship and museum – saw its visitor numbers increase by 40 per cent in 2018

McManus Art Gallery & Museum saw a 31 per cent increase.

Arts Council England and the Centre for Towns are collaborating on a project to find out more about cultural infrastructure and engagement in towns across England.

Aiming to publish findings in autumn 2019, the organisations looks to fill the gaps of other studies which have traditionally skipped over cultural engagement in towns.

VisitBritain's I Travel For campaign continues to show the world the unseen side of the UK, launching in France in February 2019.

The print, cinema, social media and Métro advertising campaign runs until the end of March, and is intended to introduce potential French tourists to the less explored destinations in Britain and experiences they may not have thought possible just over the Channel.

Watch one of the campaign videos below.

IT is one of Manchester's most iconic pubs - but the historic Mr Thomas's Chop House which first opened its doors in 1867 is about to get a radical name change.

Owner Roger Ward is renaming it Mrs Sarah's Chop House in honour of the formidable ladies who ran the Victorian pub dining rooms at a time when women weren't even allowed inside the fashionable Chop Houses of Manchester, in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Liverpool City Region's 10 year celebration of being named European Capital of Culture saw 2.2 million visitors and the economy boosted by £85 million, four times that of 2017's figures.

Highlights of the programme were:

China Dream – nine month season including China's First Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors exhibition, Chinese New Year (20,000 and netting £609,611), plus two visual arts installations: Presence at St George's Hall and This Is Shanghai in the Cunard Building (garnering £407,362).