Mutual benefits

You may or may not be aware that London is the most visited city in the world. Last year London received more overseas visitors than New York, Las Vegas and Sydney combined. That is a pretty amazing fact, especially in the face of a worldwide recession.

Nearly 40% of all visitors to London are from the Greater London area, 40% are domestic tourists from the rest of the UK and a further 20% travel from overseas, with the majority coming from Europe and North America. It’s safe to say that tourism is big business.

As you can imagine, anything that generates over £300m worth of ticket sales (which is what domestic and international tourists spent on theatre last year), we are going to take very seriously.

This year we are expecting over twenty-five million visitors to London, who will spend in excess of £16m. Our job is to get as many of those pounds spent in our theatres, galleries and museums as possible.

At aka we target visitors at every stage of the process: before they have committed to their trip; as they are making their booking; and once they have arrived and are looking for entertainment options. There is a huge amount of choice in this city – over fifty shows at any one time and over one hundred museums, galleries and attractions.

We work hard with our partners in the tourist industry, such as VisitEngland and London & Partners, to create opportunities that will drive new visitors into the capital. An example of this is our promotion of Sunday performances in the West End; an initiative we have led for many years and in 2011 our clients presented a record number of Sunday performances. The project presents a fantastic opportunity for us to work with our partners to encourage tourists to extend their weekend breaks by offering cheap Sunday packages, as this is often when hotels are notoriously quiet. By starting performances later in the afternoon than traditional matinees we have also developed cultural itineraries with our partners, suggesting tourists visit a museum, gallery or attraction in the morning then take in a late lunch before curtain up later in the afternoon.

Partnerships must benefit both the cultural and the tourism sectors. We cannot simply rely on a free advertising platform without creating opportunities that benefit our partners. Recently aka created an exclusive partnership between the UK’s largest domestic tour operator, Superbreak and War Horse, which is one of London’s most popular shows. This partnership offered Superbreak customers exclusive access to dedicated performances, while the production benefitted from extensive nationwide coverage via millions of brochures and high street travel agency promotion to the domestic market.

It is encouraging that figures show one in four overseas tourist trips to London involves a visit to the theatre and one in three a trip to a museum or gallery. However, it means that the majority of tourists do not do either; indicating there is still huge potential for growth.

This is the year when all of us in the cultural and tourist industries in London wish we had a crystal ball to predict the impact of the Olympics on visitor numbers and behaviour. However, one thing is certain: the need for both sectors to work creatively and collaboratively has never been greater.