Today, as part of their 'GREAT Britain - You're Invited' marketing programme, VisitBritain launched a free industry toolkit designed to help all UK businesses, however big or small, to leverage the campaign.

The campaign aims to encourage UK businesses and the UK public to invite their friends, family and past customers based overseas to visit them in Britain during 2012.

The Visiting Friends & Relatives (VFR) toolkit is a free resource. It includes templates for print advertisements, e-newsletters, posters and digital postcards, which can be personalised with your own message and used to invite people to visit your region of the United Kingdom. There is also '10 GREAT Reasons' app on the Love UK Facebook page. 

This is an important new phase of a £100 million four-year marketing programme to gain greater international exposure and increase the number of visitors to Britain. The Visiting Friends and Relations market is worth £3.6 billion and offers huge potential for each region in UK across the whole of 2012, which is the year to be in Britain. Working in partnership with the public to help send their invite to friends and relations around the world, VisitBritain aims to reinvigorate the UK's appeal in core markets such as the US and increase business in the important growth markets such as the BRIC countries. The goal is to deliver 4 million visitors over four years who will spend an additional £2 billion.

To find out more, or to register to download the VFR and Marketing templates, click here.