Experience Oxfordshire embraced English Tourism Week’s key message for 2025 with a series of meetings and events to celebrate the sector’s success. With this year’s campaign focusing on the role of the visitor economy in developing thriving destinations and creating jobs, Experience Oxfordshire was keen to ensure businesses and key decision makers understood the real value the sector brings to Oxfordshire.
Across the county, local MPs held business meetings with individual operators to understand the challenges and opportunities faced by their business. Issues raised included employment and operational costs, however business owners remained hopeful for a profitable season ahead.
VisitEngland Director Andrew Stokes commented, “Tourism is one of England’s largest and most valuable industries and English Tourism Week celebrates our diverse, exciting and vibrant sector, highlighting the quality of England’s tourism offer, its importance to the economy and to encourage domestic breaks.
“We congratulate Experience Oxfordshire, the county’s Local Visitor Economy Partnership, for delivering a valuable programme of engagement throughout this flagship week and beyond, working with key influencers, stakeholders and businesses to showcase Oxfordshire’s outstanding visitor offer.”
Following her visit to Oxford River Cruises, The Rt Hon Anneliese Dodds MP for Oxford East said, “English Tourism Week gives us a great opportunity to highlight what tourism provides for our city – economically, socially, and culturally too. It was great to see Oxford River Cruises in action and find out about how the company is providing an unforgettable and environmentally friendly experience for both tourists and locals in our city.”
Hayley Beer-Gamage, CEO at Experience Oxfordshire CEO said, “The government has set a target to welcome 50 million international visitors to the UK by 2030, but even this year the national tourism agency, VisitBritain, is forecasting a record growth in international visitors’ spending. Our priority is to ensure that Oxfordshire’s visitor economy gets the support it needs to maintain and grow its market share so that the county profits from this growth. We’ve been delighted with the interest in the sector shown by our local MPs this week, ongoing engagement which will continue into the future, and for the support we’ve received in facilitating the English Tourism Week activities from our Experience Oxfordshire partnership.”
Over 28 million visitor trips were made to Oxfordshire during 2023, contributing £2.3 billion to the county’s economy. Most trips are holidays (49%), followed by visitors coming on business (25%). Oxfordshire’s resulting visitor economy supports over 39,000 jobs, equating to 10% of employment.
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