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Olympics has boosted tourism credentials say Authority

Research from the British Tourist Authority, Visit Britain suggests the Olympics have improved the country’s cultural credentials.

A survey of people from 15 countries including Brazil, China and Japan, showed 68% of respondents had increased their interest in visiting for a holiday following the Games.

70% said they wanted to see more than London, and a similar percentage identified the country as a place to watch live sport.

Respondents ranked countries according to six categories including ‘overall nation brand’ and ‘culture’.

Britain improved its ranking on previous years within the ‘welcome’ category and retained its fourth place position within ‘tourism.’

Sandie Dawe, Chief Executive of VisitBritain said: “London’s hosting of the Games, the amazing opening and closing ceremonies and the warmth of welcome shown to our international visitors have combined to boost our global image.

“With our partners we have taken every opportunity to promote Britain to overseas audiences through our GREAT marketing campaign, our digital activity on Facebook and Twitter and by inviting foreign travel journalists to write about Britain. This work is now paying off with post Games visitor figures significantly up on last year, and prospects for 2013 looking strong.

“Britain is already an established visitor destination and our tourism ranking is high. The goal this year was to maintain rankings in culture and heritage where we are strong, and improve in areas such as the warmth of our welcome where we had room for improvement.

“We intend to build on these encouraging results to ensure we turn that increased goodwill into visitors and deliver a growth in tourism that will deliver jobs across the country.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .