Birmingham emerges as unlikely tourism hotspot

Birmingham has emerged as an unlikely tourism hotspot, boosted by the area's rich industrial heritage and strong air links.

More than 940,000 travellers flocked to the city – ranked fourth behind London, Edinburgh and Manchester – helping it to record a 32pc increase in overseas visitors, according to ONS figures.

Should Birmingham experience a similar surge next year, it will overtake Manchester – the self-appointed capital of the North – in terms of foreign visitor numbers.

The city is known for its strong "Brummie" accent with speakers including comedian Jasper Carrott and 1960s rock band Judas Priest.

However, Neil Rami, chief executive of Marketing Birmingham, said that the area is focussing on long haul markets, where people planning to visit Britain may be unaware that a tourism offering exists outside of London.

“We have retail, shopping, arts and culture. Birmingham is at the edge of the Shakespeare country and has a rich industrial heritage,” said Mr Rami.

“We want to make Birmingham the alternative gateway to Britain – a place outside London where visitors can start their trip.

“The great battle in tourism is not just volume, it’s value – to get visitors to spend more and to stay longer. The only way you can do that is by giving them alternatives to London. While the capital has a fantastic visitor offer, arguably one of the best in the world, if visitors are given choices beyond they will stay longer and spend more money.”

Overseas visitor figures for the whole of Britain increased by 5.6pc to 32.8m during the year, with total spend topping £21bn. Almost 8m visitors were business travellers, who injected £5bn into the economy – an 11.4pc spending rise on 2012.

The number of people coming to the country to see friends and relatives increased 4.2pc to 9.3m, falling short of the 9.7m record which was established in 2008.

On Tuesday, VisitBritain will launch two new reports about spreading the benefits of regional tourism outside of London.

Patricia Yates, director of strategy at the tourism organisation, said: “We need to encourage people to come back time after time, which in turn will mean our visitors venture out across Britain.

"London is the global superstar of tourism destinations, a city that all around the world people want to visit.

"Because of this, we need to make sure we are inspiring them on the Britain-wide offering and informing on how easy it is to travel across the country in such a short space of time.

“Encouragingly, we are starting to see results. Edinburgh and Glasgow are now in second and third place behind London for the total number of overseas holiday visitors they welcome, and international spend to the Rest of England and Scotland grew by 15% and 20% in 2013 respectively.”