VisitBritain, along with Tourism Ireland, has launched its business-to-business travel event, Destination Britain & Ireland (DEBI), in Bangkok.
The three-day event, in its ninth year, is attended by over 200 companies, with around 4,000 appointments taking place.
This year’s DEBI welcomes 22 new companies from the UK and Ireland showcasing their latest travel and tourism offerings to buyers from the Asia Pacific Middle East ica (APMEA)region. UK businesses at the event total 62 with major attractions, hotels, tour operators, transport providers and regional and national tourist boards participating.
“Hosting DEBI in Thailand this year reinforces our investment and commitment to the region, highlighted by the fact that we are bringing the largest ever delegation of UK tourism businesses to meet with influential buyers from across APMEA,” said VisitBritain’s Overseas Network Director, Keith Beecham.
DEBI offers these businesses a route to 15 key markets in the fast growing APMEA region and an opportunity to further boost the 4.3m visits that come to the UK each year from this part of the world.
“APMEA accounts for 14 per cent of inbound tourism to Britain in terms of visits and 27.7 per cent of total spend, but there is scope for us to do more in order to attract a greater share of the market. To help us attract more visitors, we have increased our marketing investment and millions of consumers in this region will have seen our £25m image campaign, GREAT images, that we hope will inspire them to choose Britain,” Beecham added.
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