For info, the reference to VisitEngland is well placed.
I referenced VisitBritain and it's polarised view of the UK a few months ago.
If you check LinkedIn so often workshops and external promotions seems to promote Heathrow as the be all and end all (which of course it is).
Nobody can compete with 120 flights a day from the US or 30 flghts a day from China but the galling thing from the Norths point of view is the fact that Manchester is actually the 3rd most popular destination for US visitors. That is from VisitBritains own statistical analysis, sadly the correlation between visitors and flights is now completely out of kilter and will never be rectified. I suspect its unbreakable.
For "International visitors" to England as Rutan says, V.B. look through the prism of London, Shakespeare Country and Bicester Outlet village.
There "virtual" move to Birmingham may enhance that offering. Good luck to Birmingham if it does.
I say virtual as under a FOI request to the cabinet office they confirmed they were judge , jury and executioner in moving there HQ to Birmingham as part of Goves levelling up agenda. Some government depts have moved North but not V. B. who somehow managed to swerve the fate of other departments who ended up in Newport, Manchester, and Darlington.
Incidentally that vacuum in Whitehall has been filled 3x over. Despite the propaganda in moving civil servants "up North", there are now more civil servants in London than there were pre Covid. The void has been well filled.
I digress, the Visit Britain move was performed using Hacker protocols of setting up a committee to then convene an internal committee based on personel from the department that then decided the best place to relocate re levelling up was 'er Birmingham!
Zero input from the regions.
Birmingham was selected based on unknown internal criteria , it also meant that the current London based staff who formed the committee can no doubt enjoy a mix of working from home and of course commuting , they declined to answer if the commute was subsidised by the taxpayer.
Last edited by Navpi; 27th Dec 2023 at 10:18.