Everything you need to know about English Tourism Week 2021 and how it can help your visitor attraction

What happens during English Tourism Week?

Good question. Naturally, ETW is a bit up in the air at the moment. It’s usually held in late March/early April, to coincide with Easter and the start of the tourist season, but in 2020 it was moved to late May, for obvious reasons. In 2021, it’s happening 22-31 May, but is expected to return to early spring for 2022.

In 2020, the event went virtual. In 2018 and 2019, it took on more of a consumer focus, engaging and motivating domestic holidaymakers, as well as being for the industry. Now, it’s very much back to being an industry celebration. In a normal year, you can expect:

• The Big Weekend: Usually coinciding with ETW, The Big Weekend encourages local visitor attractions to offer free tickets to local residents. The goal is to turn locals into better-informed ambassadors for their county, meaning they can recommend great things to see and do to visiting friends and family. It first launched in Kent in 2012 and has since run in Hertfordshire, Essex, Jersey and Norwich. East Sussex is set to join the fold soon, too. The Big Weekend is run by Go To Places, which provides destination management services across multiple counties.
  
  
• Tourism Superstar: The annual Tourism Superstar competition, held in partnership with The Mirror newspaper, helps turn tourism stats into engaging stories by showcasing the amazing people who work on tourism’s frontline. Every year, 10 finalists (nominated by their tourism businesses or their local DMO) go head to head to be crowned Tourism Superstar. Their stories are promoted by video on social media and the winner is decided by public vote on The Mirror website. The winner is announced during ETW. (Tourism Superstar is on hold for 2021 – an extra shame as this year marks the competition’s 10^th anniversary – but expected to return for 2022.)
  
  
• Events listings: Every year, VisitEngland dedicates a section of its website to the many B2C and B2B events and offers held by tourism businesses across the country to mark ETW. These tend to include anything from money off entry to free cups of tea to one-off themed guided tours. (It’s not yet known if there will be events listing in 2021 – sign up to VisitEngland’s industry newsletter to be the first to know when more info is available.)
  
  
• Industry lobbying: See below…

Why is English Tourism Week important?

As well as helping to bring England’s tourism industry together under one big campaign, ETW is an important lobbying tool. It’s an opportunity to raise awareness of the sector to key stakeholders such as local MPs – a parliamentary reception is usually a key component – and show how important it is to build strong and resilient destinations.

This lobbying aspect has never been more vital. As we all know, tourism was one of the hardest hit economic sectors during the pandemic; ETW is a well-established opportunity to highlight how vital tourism is to the economy and lobby for extra support for the millions of people who work in it.

How can my visitor attraction get involved with English Tourism Week – and why should it?

Here are a few simple ways to get involved in ETW (in a normal year) and the benefits of doing so:

• Use ETW as an opportunity to build links with your local DMO. Get in touch to see what they’re doing to support ETW (and let them know what you’re up to during ETW). This could be anything from running a regional Tourism Superstar round (This Is Durham seems to be especially good at this) or Big Weekend, to putting out a press release rounding up local ETW events.
  
  
• Nominate someone from your attraction for Tourism Superstar. If you reach the finals, you can expect coverage in The Mirror as well as plenty of attention from local media. Even if you don’t get that far, there are lots of valuable benefits to getting involved with awards programmes.
  
  
• Plan an offer or event to support ETW. It doesn’t have to be ETW-themed, but it does have to be available during the nine days of ETW. Joining the wider ETW marketing campaign is an opportunity to amplify your reach and engage with a different audience, so make sure you list your event or offer on the ETW website, alert your local DMO to it, and promote it on social media using the relevant ETW-approved hashtags. Hint: if you want your event/offer to be picked up by VisitEngland’s press and content teams, try to offer a discount of at least 20% or do something extra special during that week. A free cup of tea probably isn’t going to make the national tourist board’s press releases and social media posts, although you might get a couple of local residents dropping by!

Right now, for English Tourism Week 2021, you can

• Show your support by using the following hashtags across your social media:
• #EnglishTourismWeek21. Don’t forget to tag @VisitEnglandBiz – to increase your chances of a retweet, add a message of support such as, “I support English tourism because…”
• #throwbackthursday. Share photos and memories of your favourite holidays in England to celebrate the times and places we all love.
  
  
• Download the ETW logos (ZIP, 5.75MB) for use in your messaging and to encourage your local stakeholders to join in.
  
  
• Keep your eyes on the official English Tourism Week page and sign up to VisitEngland’s industry newsletter. You’ll be the first to know when the official ETW21 toolkit is ready for use. It usually includes logos, hashtags, dates, slogans and more.
  
  
  Download the New Visitor Experience guide