Kent to be first choice day trip and short break rail destination for Londoners

As our Kent 2012 Strategy states, Visit Kent, who manage and lead the Kent 2012 tourism sectoral task group, has been seeking to “continue to raise the visibility of Kent’s tourism offer through a targeted UK campaign, particularly focusing on the London market”. Visit Kent and partners southeastern are now in the third year of delivering against this objective, with impressive results from 2007 and 2008 to build upon

• 4% of respondents mentioned Kent spontaneously  in 2008 versus 2.6% in 2007
• 24% of respondents mentioned Kent as the destination in 2008 compared to 15% in 2007
• And 48% took the message that Kent is a ‘place to go by train’ (25% in 2007)

2009’s ‘London Campaign’ will focus on themes of coast, heritage and outdoors, and will be delivered through a mixture of on-tube and London railway station advertising, London radio (for the first time), as well as newsletters, brochure and the website www.visitkentbytrain.com

The ‘London Campaign’ is a key element of the Kent 2012 tourism approach because we are looking to grow the tourism income to the county by £324 million (2%) for the nine year period around the Games (2008 – 2016). By targeting London as the UK’s single largest market (picking up Londoners, other British visitors, plus international visitors), we hope to reinforce our accessible tourism offer to the London market.