Britain’s national tourism agency, VisitBritain, has announced an exclusive partnership with EMI Music. The agreement will help drive awareness of Britain as a tourist destination, highlight its world-renowned rock and pop music heritage and raise the profile of the musical appeal of its individual cities.
In the first partnership of its kind, VisitBritain and EMI offices around the globe will work together to market and promote a number of new releases by British EMI artists. EMI, as the only British major music company, is perfectly positioned to lend its name to the campaign, given its unrivalled heritage and legacy of British music.
Editorial about British artists will be seeded throughout www.visitbritain.com, with information on the towns and cities where they were formed or that inspired their music. The website will widen awareness of not only the great and the good of British music, but highlight new and emerging talent from England, Scotland and Wales. A key element of the partnership allows the 12 million potential visitors that use the website to download the soundtrack to their holiday from over 140,000 tracks from EMI’s catalogue.
Announcing the partnership, VisitBritain chief executive Tom Wright, says: “21% of potential visitors are inspired to choose a destination because of the music or bands of that country. British music and musicians, solo artists and bands are often someone’s first introduction to the unique appeals of this country. Our partnership with EMI Music will help us showcase the places behind the music and encourage them to visit.”
49% of potential visitors very likely to go to live music concerts or events and 23 million Brits (38%) already taking in a concert or festival in this country, according to VisitBritain’s research. Users of visitbritain.com will be able to read about their favourite artists and songs and then click through to download tracks.
Destination guides to London will remind potential travellers of the capital’s connections to Spandau Ballet, Madness and Culture Club, Lily Allen and Iron Maiden. As one of England's best-connected music destinations, Liverpool is renowned as the birthplace of the Beatles, but is also home to the music of Atomic Kitten, Marc Almond, the Spice Girls’ Mel C, Gerry and the Pacemakers and Cilla Black. Wales will feature Shirley Bassey and from Scotland, the likes of The Proclaimers, Simple Minds and KT Tunstall will help raise awareness.
Giles Harris, head of business development, EMI Music UK and Ireland, comments: “EMI’s catalogue of British music reads like a who’s who of the cream of contemporary British music, from The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Queen, to Radiohead, Robbie Williams, Coldplay, Gorillaz and Pet Shop Boys. We’re all so used to plugging in to our favourite music while on holiday, now visitors can download their favourite British tracks and indulge their senses for a thoroughly British holiday experience.”
2007 is shaping up to be the year of music tourism. VisitBritain’s England marketing division launched its massively successful England Rocks! campaign at the start of the year. EMI releases a three-disc CD to celebrate The Cavern Club’s golden anniversary containing 50 tracks from a who’s who of British popular music over the decades. As well as the Cavern’s 50th, 2007 saw the return of Glastonbury and the BRITS broadcast live for the first time in a number of years. The Who took their place in history when Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend received The South Bank Show's outstanding achievement award after more than 40 years rocking the world, and The Police are to reform and tour to celebrate 30 years of their first hit ‘Roxanne’.
For further information, please contact:
VisitBritain: Elliott Frisby on 020 8563 3035 or 07951 996241
EMI Music: Samantha Holderness 020 7605 5487 or Cathy Cremer 020 7605 5308
Notes to Editors
· Research quoted comes from VisitBritain research from the Nation Brands Index and International Travel Satisfaction Study
About EMI Music
· EMI Music is the recorded music division of EMI Group, the world's largest independent music company. Its EMI Music division represents artists spanning all musical tastes and genres. Its record labels include Angel, Astralwerks, Blue Note, Capitol, Capitol Nashville, EMI Classics, EMI CMG, EMI Records, EMI Televisa Music, Manhattan, Mute, Parlophone and Virgin. Artists on EMI labels include Lily Allen, The Beatles, Coldplay, Corinne Bailey Rae, The Good The Bad & The Queen, Gorillaz, Norah Jones, The Kooks, Korn, Kylie Minogue, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Joss Stone, 30 Seconds To Mars, KT Tunstall, Keith Urban and Robbie Williams, as well as international artists such as Amaral (Spain), Diam’s (France), Utada Hikaru (Japan), LaFee (Germany), Radja (Indonesia), RBD (Mexico) and Vasco Rossi (Italy).
· EMI has been at the cutting edge of the rapidly growing digital music marketplace since it released David Bowie’s ‘Hours’ as the world’s first ever album to be offered as a digital download in 1999. EMI has signed agreements with hundreds of digital partners to distribute its music across the globe. It continues to facilitate the development of a growing range of new digital business models to enable fans to experience and purchase its artists’ output through a number of different platforms including advertising-supported online music streaming in China through Baidu, legal peer-to-peer agreements with QTrax, Mashboxx and GNAB, and a deal to offer advertising-supported videos on mobile phones in the US through Rhythm NewMedia.
· For further information on EMI, please visit: www.emigroup.com.
About VisitBritain
· VisitBritain is responsible for promoting Britain as a world class tourist destination and for developing England’s visitor economy. It has representatives in 36 countries around the world and, in the last three years, has expanded into China, throughout Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, and increased its presence in India with representatives in Bangalore and Mumbai.
· In 2006, provisional data indicates that there were 32.2 million visits to Britain, 7% up on 2005. They spent £15.4 billion in the UK: an 8% increase on 2005.
· VisitBritain’s international website, www.visitbritain.com, was awarded World’s Leading Tourism Authority Internet Site for the third year in a row at the 2006 World Travel Awards by more than 200,000 travel and tourism professionals. With information provided in 26 different languages, every year over 12 million visits are made by international consumers to the 46 websites that make up visitbritain.com. VisitBritain plans to increase this to 25 million by 2009.
· An archive of media releases, information on VisitBritain's marketing activities, print quality, free-to-download images and more details about the work of VisitBritain in promoting Britain as a destination, can be found on VisitBritain’s online press centre, www.visitbritain.com/presscentre