Get Involved
This section provides a few suggestions of how organisations and individuals can get involved in British Tourism Week
Organise your own event
By organising your own event under the BTW banner, you will be raising the profile of your organisation or business locally as well as contributing to the national profile of BTW. If you are already organising an event that takes place at the same time as BTW, you might like to register it as a BTW event. Alternatively you might like to arrange something new as part of the week. It doesn’t have to be a large event, you could:
- Organise a conference, exhibition, seminar, meeting, or product launch perhaps for the trade.
- For consumers you could organise a festival or fair, guided walks, competitions and quizzes, or special deals at accommodation and attractions ahead of the Easter holidays.
- Hold an open day for students interested in working in tourism.
- Invite your local MP, Welsh Assembly Member (AM), Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP), or local councilor to visit your tourism business, in the run up to or during British Tourism Week. This would help maintain the profile of tourism with government and could generate great publicity. Download our template letter.
- Encourage your local MP, AM, MSP, and councilor to log onto the website and pledge their support and back British Tourism Week. An additional letter is also available to download.
- Work together with other tourism businesses in your area to raise awareness of certain issues affecting you locally. BTW is a good opportunity to lobby local government and councilors, and to generate publicity.
Whatever you decide to do, your event needs to be accredited for it to be included in the events listing.
To ensure that BTW branded events do not compete for audience, and support at least one of the aims and objectives of the week, the BTW Executive Committee has approved a simple accreditation process. Any bona fide British tourism organisation can apply to brand their event as part of British Tourism Week by completing the Event Accreditation Application Form.
Once accredited, event organisers will be provided with a BTW "toolkit", including a branding pack with a comprehensive style guide, and their event details will be added to the BTW calendar of events and website.
The BTW Committee will respond to all accreditation applications within 5 working days of receipt.
The BTW branding will be made available to all BTW-accredited events.
Attend one of the existing BTW events
Many of the BTW events have been organised to provide the industry with an opportunity to celebrate its success, debate issues for the future and raise the profile of this £115 billion industry with government and media.
If you are interested in attending any of the events, contact details are provided in the calendar of events.
Support a BTW event
There are many different ways that you could support a BTW event. Apart from attending an event, you could:
- Sponsor an event
- Provide catering or a venue
- Promote the event through your business, website, publications, etc.
Promote the Week though your own communications
Word of mouth really is the best form of communication tool. There are a number of ways in which you can promote the week:
- Mention British Tourism Week, and disseminate BTW messages at all available opportunities between now and then, such as meetings and conferences at which you may be speaking.
- Promote British Tourism Week and link to the BTW website from your own website.
- Highlight specific BTW projects and events in your own newsletters and communications to both industry and consumers so they know how to get involved or attend an event. The calendar of events will be populated as new events are registered online. Sample copy and resources are available on the BTW website, and logos, animated gif files and branding can be provided by emailing your request to brandmanager@britishtourismweek.com.
- Reference British Tourism Week in the editors notes on your own press releases in run up to BTW.
British Tourism Week poster
Congratulations go to Ian Abrahams, a young chef at Searcy’s in Bath whose photo won first prize in a competition to find the ‘faces of British Tourism Week 2010’. His photo appeared on the official poster which was displayed in attractions, accommodation establishments, tourist information centres, offices and business premises to promote the week.
The Executive Committee would like to thank all entrants who took the time to participate in the photo competition, particularly those whose photos were 'highly commended' by the judges, and who all received a one night stay for two people at any one of Millennium & Copthorne 4* hotels in the UK, sponsored by Millennium & Copthorne Hotels.
The competition invited those people who work in the industry to submit photos of themselves and their colleagues at work, to highlight the wide range of roles, skills and opportunities that exist in the tourism and hospitality industries. A photo competition for the 2011 poster will be launched in the Autumn 2010. For more information, please email photos@britishtourismweek.com.
The poster also featured the 2009 winners of some of our industries top awards to showcase the excellence in the tourism and hospitality industries. These include winners of the English regional Outstanding Customer Service Awards, and the equivalent award winners from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland; the top three winners of the National Skills Academy's 'Smiles of Britain' campaign (picked from 21 finalists who were selected from 4000 images); and the Customer First Team Award winner and Star of the Year from the Manchester Airports Group (which includes Manchester, East Midlands, Humberside and Bournemouth Airports) who chair the 'ports of entry' sub-group, part of the Welcome to Britain campaign which aims to significantly improve the welcome offered by our tourism and hospitality industries to all our visitors from around the world, and at home.
For more details about how you can support a BTW event either contact the individual event organisers or mail@britishtourismweek.com.