Tourism in the West Midlands
Tourism is the fourth largest contributor to the economy of the West Midlands. Each year more than 140 million visits are made to our region, generating over £5 billion to the economy and supporting more than 130,000 jobs. Additionally, business tourism is now worth over £6.6 billion and offers employment to more than 100,000 people.
West Midlands' visitor attractions include the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon, Alton Towers theme park, the National Indoor Arena, Birmingham Symphony Hall and Warwick Castle among many others. These assets add tremendous value to the quality of life of our residents, and to our region’s attractiveness to international investors.
The West Midlands has a particularly strong market share in business tourism, based around the region's world-class venues and facilities such as the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham and excellent accessibility from UK and overseas destinations. In fact, the West Midlands hosts more conferences and events than any other region outside of London.
The West Midlands also has a healthy leisure tourism sector, dominated by day visitors and domestic visitors, which shows great potential for increasing the average spend per visitor and contributing even more to the West Midlands' economy.
The role of Advantage West Midlands in tourism
Advantage West Midlands has strategic responsibility for tourism in the region. The role of tourism partners is outlined in the Visitor Economy Strategy and Tourism West Midlands was established to guide the delivery of the strategy.
Tourism West Midlands consists of key professionals recruited from the private and public sector, supported by an executive team responsible for delivering tourism policy, intellegence, marketing and communications.
Since 2003, Advantage West Midlands' achievements towards improving tourism in the region include:
providing assistance to over 2,000 tourism businesses through the...