England Originals Welcome Training to Take Place on 13th March 2019, a Valuable Opportunity for Oxford Businesses

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Experience Oxfordshire is calling on Oxford businesses to get involved in a £1.6m Discover England Fund* project by England Originals from England Historic Cities, to attract more international visitors to the city.

For the very first time Oxford along with 14 of England’s top ranked historic cities and the City of London, have come together as England Originals, launching five new, hassle-free, easy to book itineraries aimed primarily at US millennials.

The tours present heritage in an exciting new way, through story-telling and augmented reality, and can easily be completed in three-to-four-days. Oxford is one of three cities featured in the Thinkers and Writers Tour.

On 13th March England Originals will host a Welcome Training Programme in Oxford for business owners and front-line staff, providing an overview on the project and how businesses can benefit from being involved. The training is designed to help attendees become even more effective and informed ambassadors for England Originals and Oxford and to attract more customers through positive recommendations and repeat bookings.

What attendees can expect from the three-hour programme;

  • Introduction to England Originals, including an illustration of the new app
  • How Oxford is being promoted as part of England Originals & how your business can benefit
  • Market insight on US millennials
  • Tourism product update from Oxford
  • Interactive visit of an Oxford attraction
  • Ways your business can work with the international travel trade
  • A chance to network with local businesses and organisations

 

England Originals will benefit tourism businesses located in and around the 14 English cities, and the City of London, and this training will help to upskill staff and develop their product knowledge.

The Welcome Training Programme will take place at the Pitt Rivers Museum from 9:30am to 1:00pm, and a free set of online tools will be available for businesses and their staff post session. Tickets to the training cost £50 per person and can be booked at https://www.englandoriginals.co.uk/oxford/.

Local businesses that are already collaborating with the project have two complimentary places available to them.

For further information about England Originals and Oxford businesses already involved in the project visit www.visitlondon.com/englandoriginals.

For general information about England’s Historic Cities visit www.heritagecities.com.

*England Originals from England’s Historic Cities is one of a number of projects to benefit from funding from the UK Government’s £40 million Discover England Fund. The Fund is administered by VisitEngland and involves a programme of activity to ensure that England stays competitive in the rapidly growing global tourism industry, by offering world-class English tourism products to the right customers at the right time. The Fund is a central government funded programme of activity, supported by match funding by partners in the public and private sectors.

 

 

ENDS

 

 

For more information contact:

Antonio Ferrara

Phone: 01865 686433

Email: press@experienceoxfordshire.org / antonio.ferrara@experienceoxfordshire.org

 

Experience Oxfordshire

Experience Oxfordshire is the official Destination Management Organisation (DMO) for Oxfordshire. We are the trading arm of the parent charity, the Experience Oxfordshire Charitable Trust, and are a not-for-profit partnership organisation that is committed to the promotion, management and development of Oxfordshire as a great destination to live, work, visit and do business.

www.experienceoxfordshire.org/partner

 

England’s Historic Cities

England’s Historic Cities is a partnership of destinations brought together by common product and interests. Its purpose is to exchange knowledge, find solutions to shared challenges, benchmark performance, raise the profile of England’s heritage product and facilitate joint activity, all with the intention of maximising the potential of the cities’ visitor economies.

Its geographical footprint spans the length and breadth of England and membership comprises 13 of the country’s premiere heritage locations: Bath, Canterbury, Cambridge, Chester, Carlisle, Durham, Greenwich, Lancaster, Lincoln, Oxford, Salisbury, Stratford and York. They are joined in England Originals by the City of London, and emerging historic destinations, Truro and Worcester.

Additional partners to England Originals are English Heritage, the Historic Houses Association and the National Trust, as well as long standing strategic partners to the consortium, UKinbound and London and Partners.

 

The Discover England Fund

  • In November 2015, the Government announced a £40 million Discover England Fund; an unprecedented opportunity for English tourism. The Fund aims to deliver world-class bookable tourism products joined up across geographies and/or themes; including integrated transport solutions to provide an end-to-end customer experience.
  • The Fund supports the growth of one of England’s most successful export industries, inbound tourism. Tourism is an industry that delivers jobs and economic growth across the English regions – contributing some £106bn each year to the economy and supporting 2.6 million jobs.
  • The Fund supported a number of pilot projects in year one (2016/17) that tested product development approaches. In years two and three, 2017-19, the fund will support:

o             A number of large-scale collaborative projects to be delivered over the two-year period 2017-2019 that will create a step-change in bookable English tourism product for international consumers,

o             A smaller funding pot for new one-year pilot projects (in year two), and

o             Continuation funding for existing year one projects that demonstrated early learnings (in year two).

 

VisitBritain/VisitEngland

  • VisitBritain/VisitEngland is the national tourism agency – a non-departmental public body funded by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS)
  • Working with a wide range of partners in both the UK and overseas, our mission is to grow the volume and value of inbound tourism across the nations and regions of Britain and to develop world-class English tourism product to support our growth aspirations. For further information and to access the latest in-depth market intelligence and statistics visit www.visitbritain.org or www.visitbritain.com and www.visitengland.com for consumer information.