Marketing Birmingham aims to show region’s canals are a cut above

BIRMINGHAM’S marketing organisation has secured a new contract to promote one of the region’s hidden gems to overseas visitors.

Marketing Birmingham has secured funding from VisitEngland’s £40m Discover England Fund to promote the region’s waterways to tourists.

Working closely with partners across the Midlands region, including Shakespeare’s England, LeicesterShire Promotions and Tamworth, Marketing Birmingham will develop two itineraries – as well as a digital guidebook – along a stretch of waterway known as the Warwickshire Ring.   
 
Tim Manson, Operations & Policy Director at Marketing Birmingham, which operates the city’s leisure and business tourism programmes Visit Birmingham and Meet Birmingham, said: “An unprecedented number of tourists are choosing to spend their leisure time in the Midlands area, evidenced by encouraging recent hotel occupancy figures in Birmingham, and the city attracting more visitors than ever last year.

“Our challenge now is to encourage our guests to stay longer, so we are taking this opportunity to join forces with partners across the region to further develop our tourism offer using the area’s outstanding heritage and culture.
 
“Learning from mature markets in France – such as the Canal du Midi – we will be targeting visitors from Germany and Scandinavia by developing a set of mini-excursions with boat hire operators, attractions and local businesses to demonstrate how easy it is for tourists to find their way around the area.”      

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