Digital shops vie for VisitBritain brief

Agencies have already received the briefing, but the pitches have yet to

take place. They are expected to begin in the following two weeks.

The move is being made as VisitBritain continues to invest heavily in
digital in a bid to bring more advertisers and tourists to the UK market
in the face of funding cuts enforced by the Department for Culture,
Media and Sport.

In November last year, the DCMS announced that it would be slashing
VisitBritain's funding by 18 per cent over the next three years, cutting
the organisation's ability to run big ad campaigns in the run-up to the
Olympics.

It recently invested in a campaign to lure influential overseas bloggers
to the UK in a bid to promote the country on the back of the upcoming
James Bond film, Quantum of Solace.

The bloggers from around the globe will "live like Bond" in Britain and
recount their experiences. They come from websites such as Italy's
Blog.screenweek.it, Japan's Cinemacafe.net, Germany's Moviemaze.de and
the Los Angeles-based Comingsoon.net and Chud.com.

In February, Enjoy England boosted its digital marketing strategy by
including a series of social-media elements in its web portal.