Region's first TV ad in £25m tourism drive

A £25 million plan was launched today to attract thousands more tourists to the West Midlands, including the region's first ever TV ad campaign.

The publicly-funded campaign, backed by money from the regional development agency Advantage West Midlands, also includes a £1 million Celebration of Imagination festival.

This aims to mark milestones this year such as 100 years of Morgan cars, the 150th anniversary of Jerome K Jerome, Walsall author of Three Men In a Boat, 300 years of Ironbridge and Shakespeare's 400th birthday.

The TV campaign will be aimed at attracting visitors from elsewhere in the UK.

The plan is to build on the existing "Love the Heart of England" campaign rather than come up with a new slogan. Another £12 million is to be spent on attracting new conferences and exhibitions to the region.

A seven-point action plan was unveiled today by Regional Minister Ian Austin and the chairman of Tourism West Midlands, Brian Summers, at the West Midlands Tourism Summit at Gaydon.

The campaign also aims to promote short "city-breaks" to the region from elsewhere in Britain and Europe, a pilot project to promote jobs in tourism and plans to entice visitors to the 2012 Olympics to travel to the West Midlands

Ian Austin, the MP for Dudley North, said:"We've got world-class attractions, first-class shopping, fantastic theatres and beautiful countryside here in the West Midlands.

"Tourism is our fourth largest industry bringing in £6 billion each year to the West Midlands, supporting 115,000 jobs across 30,000 companies."

Brian Summers said: "I am delighted AWM has supported this with a £25million three year programme established in response to the priorities identified by the Tourism West Midlands board."