VISITBRITAIN EMBARKS ON DIGITAL TORCH RELAY JOURNEY

The Torch Relay has given the national tourism agency the opportunity to build on VisitBritain’s strong partnership with Olympic sponsor, Samsung. VisitBritain’s Super Bloggers will be joining the Samsung torch relay truck on key dates of the journey, capitalising on the unique access to tweet, blog and create stories that highlight towns and cities across the UK.

A unique interactive map has been created on visitbritain.com and Love UK to allow potential visitors to ‘Follow the Torch’ as it makes its journey within 10 miles of 95 per cent of Britain. The ‘Follow the Torch’ map uses new integrated Google Street View technology so that followers across the world can see images and explore torch locations before they decide whether they want to visit. Destination content will be added each day as the journey progresses with all activity done in conjunction with Samsung.

Images and inspirational content will be posted via VisitBritain’s online network, enabling consumers around the world to enjoy some of the beautiful locations the torch will be passing through. From Land’s end to Aberystwyth or Cambridge to Inverness, there is something for everyone along the torch route that will enable locals and tourists alike to savour and generate their own affinity towards the London 2012 Games.

All of VisitBritain’s digital platforms will be involved, with engaging content posted on Love UK - VisitBritain’s main Facebook page. Now with nearly 800,000 fans, it has recently been named one of the biggest brand pages in the UK ahead of Cadbury’s and Starbucks with mass influence both domestically and overseas.

There will be live tweets from consumer site @VisitBritain, the most influential tourist board on twitter (Klout score) and from the corporate feed @VisitBritainBiz. VisitBritain’s corporate page will post a tweet a day to celebrate the 70 day marathon with each tweet unveiling golden nuggets of information which are useful not only for the tourism industry but also to impress your friends down the pub with. Each tweet offers insightful information about the area it will be passing.

Tweets on @VisitBritainBiz will include:

• 17 per cent of Germans want to go to the Highland Games (Inverness)
• 41 per cent of Russians would like to see the sun rise at Stonehenge (passes Stonehenge)
• 19 per cent of Americans would like to go shopping in Harrods (London)

To complement all of this, VisitBritain will also be producing an app on Love UK which will enable all fans to pass virtual flags around the world. Users will be encouraged to keep passing the digital flag to Facebook friends in an attempt to build up points. The flag with the most passes will win a prize provided by one of VisitBritain’s key strategic partners.

Phil Taylor, Head of Digital at VisitBritain said: “For 70 days the Olympic Torch will journey through the most amazing landscapes and locations in Britain. It will highlight Britain’s great offerings, passing through outstanding natural beauty and historically significant spots like Stonehenge along the way, helping to expose the wide array of our rural, urban and eclectic culture for the entire world to see.

“As the first truly social media Games, we are making sure we do all we can to ensure our digital and social media networks are a key inspirational medium for international visitors both in the lead up to and during Games time”.