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Commercial Division update

Carol Dray, Commercial Director

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Today…

• Education programme ‘Taking England to the World’

• Discover England Fund Platform

• Distribution Partnerships

• Trade Platforms

Taking England to the World……

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Tourism Education Programme – ‘Taking England to the World’

• Discover England Fund (DEF) objectives:

– To increase the competitiveness of England’s tourism offer, both internationally and

domestically

– To develop world-class bookable tourism products in line with market trends and in response

to consumer demands

• Through the DEF projects the challenge has been highlighted on how we educate DMO’s plus

small and medium-sized tourism businesses on practical & commercial information building their

expertise on becoming ‘International & Domestic Ready’

• Supporting both the DEF and the wider responsibility for product development and distribution,

we have taken a new approach

– Tourism Education Programme – ‘Taking England to the World’

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Tourism Education Programme

Phase 1 – launched in October

Supporting DMOs and SMEs develop their

‘market ready’ propositions for both domestic

& international markets

Available to download online and in print:

https://trade.visitbritain.com

Search: ‘Taking England to the World’

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Phase 2 – complete development & launch in Q4 2018

• To develop additional assets through e-learning modules & face to face delivery through

workshops to increase ‘international & domestic ready’ capability

• In-conjunction we are developing our partnership with Google Garage to join our

workshops with a bespoke programme to increase ‘digital skills’

• VE Training support team to be recruited

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Tourism Education Programme – ‘Taking England to the World’

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Discover England Fund Platform

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DEF Platform – strategic solution

What we are trying to achieve:

• One of the key success criteria’s of DEF is the creation of bookable product and

distribution in international markets

• Many of the DMO’s/Projects acknowledge that DEF has highlighted the need for

improved product development and distribution

• The requirements for the technical solution highlighted in the projects included:

– Itinerary building

– Content aggregation and distribution

– Web and app solutions

– Product bookability

– Product distribution

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A reminder Tourism Ecosystem – market failure

SuppliersAggregatorsSearch Agents

Inte

rnational T

ravelle

rs

Airlines

Chain Hotels

Car Rental

SME/Independent Accommodation

Rail

Local Transportation

Attractions and Events

GDS eg. Amadeus, Sabre,

Travelport, TravelSky

DMC / Wholesaler eg.

DMOs eg. Visit Manchester,

London & Partners

OTAs

Priceline, Expedia

Tour Operators

/ Specialists

TUI, Thomas Cook

Experience Aggregators eg.

Viator

Traditional Agents

Eg. American Express, Flight

Centre

Accommodation Aggregator

eg. Hotelbeds, AirBnB

Traditional Media eg Newspapers

Search Engine

eg. Google,

Bing

Meta eg. Kayak

(Priceline),

Trivago,

Skyscanner

Search Engine

Meta

Market Failure Gap

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DEF Platform Business to Business – not competition but complimentary

Suppliers

Airlines

Chain Hotels

Car Rental

SME/Independent Accommodation

Rail

Local Transportation

Attractions and Events

AggregatorsSearch Agents

GDS

DMC / Wholesaler

OTAs

Tour Operators

/ Specialists

Experience Aggregators

Traditional Agents

Accommodation Aggregator

Press

Search Engine

Meta

Meta

DE

F P

latf

orm

Inte

rnatio

nal T

ravelle

rs

DMOs

Positioned as Business to Business only, not in

competition with commercial players:

● VE/VB No role in the commission or contract

negotiations

● Focus on enablement of the tourism suppliers and

role of the DMOs

● Integration capabilities for large or small suppliers

● Facilitating connectivity to global distributors

● Optimise existing VB partnership relationships

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The DEF Platform – timeframes and supporting activity

May 2018

– Pilot platform completed with 4 DEF projects May 2018

August – September 2018

– Business case approval process completed and approval gained for the BETA phase platform

rollout

October – December 2018

– Platform procurement process

January 2019

– Contract to be awarded

– VE support team to be recruited

January – March 2019

– Q4 technical development delivery with DEF projects

– DEF platform information to be included in the Education programme ‘TETTW’

Q1 2019

- DEF projects trading through the platform

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Distribution Partners

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xxx

Discover England Fund Projects 2016 - 2019

• 56 projects led by DMO’s and including small businesses

and Commercial Partners

• Regionally spread across England

creating new itineraries, attractions

and experiences

• Distributed through Commercial Partners

and DMC’s

14Friday, November 30, 2018

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Commercial Partnerships - Destination Management Companies

• Launched in 2017/18 as part of the DEF distribution strategy

• Continues in 2018/19 and we are in the final procurement & planning

phase

Friday,

November 30,

2018

42 new itineraries produced

21 new training

programmes & 1336 agents

trained

Social media coverage.

65,000 impressions

Exposure at 23trade shows, local events.

Matched cash and MIK

Total value

£1.34 million

16,200pieces new

sales collateral

distributed

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GREAT CORE

Passengers

to UK (Total

2017)

USA FRA DEU AUS GCC IND CHN UK ITA ESP NL NOR CAN ROW

Total

Distribution

x 6 DMC's

wholesalers

2,300,000 257,791 78,000 211,161 12,973 77,782 91,250 102,500 431,424 77,479 223,303 38,518 57,350 45,740 10,000

Reach & scale via Destination Management Companies & Bedbanks

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Trade Platforms

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Trade Platforms

• Trade events

– Our programme of Domestic and International Trade

events

– ITB, ExploreGB, VIBE, WTM, Destination Britain Missions

• Trade website – www.trade.visitbritain.com

– One stop shop for Domestic and International Trade

• BritAgent - online training programme aimed at Domestic

and International trade

Footer Friday, November 30, 2018

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Thank you