A new partnership between national tourism agency VisitBritain and Red Letter Days launches today (12 December) and brings a world of experiences to visitors booking a break in Britain online.

Thanks to the deal, domestic and international tourists, as well as corporate groups, will be able to buy hundreds of experiences from cocktail and cookery master-classes, llama trekking and falconry to spa days, sports and outdoor activities, driving adventures or seeing the destination from the air. With the impetus for travel being increasingly experience-led, VisitBritain and Red Letter Days aim to raise awareness of a variety of unforgettable experiences - all backed by first-class customer service.

The products are initially available for British consumers, branded as Enjoy England Experiences. 114 are now available on VisitBritain's online shop, www.enjoyenglanddirect.com for customers looking to give out-of-the-ordinary gifts this Christmas. The partnership will continue to develop throughout 2007 with VisitBritain and Red Letter Days jointly developing new co-branded products and services to accommodate the latest holiday trends and changing customer demands.

Kenny Boyle, commercial and marketing services director for VisitBritain, says: "Britons take 139 million overnight trips in this country and a further 1.1 billion day trips, spending nearly £53 million altogether. This is a unique and inspirational way for travellers to enhance their holiday or business visit in Britain. I am delighted that VisitBritain has formed this partnership with Red Letter Days, which provides an easy and hassle-free way for people to get more from their short breaks, backed by the trust and reliability of the UK's national tourism agency. Together we will help further increase the value of our £74 billion visitor economy and boost tourism nationwide."

Zachary Soreff, director of sales and marketing at Red Letter Days, added "We are delighted to announce this strategic partnership between VisitBritain and Red Letter Days. As the original experiences company, we pride ourselves on providing a premium product - and VisitBritain fits perfectly with our first-class, full service offering. We will be introducing some innovative new experiences together in the coming months, as well as new ways of doing business in the experiences market, and we are looking forward to communicating the initiative to VisitBritain's vast corporate and visitor customer base."

The experiences offered compliment Enjoy England campaign activity and the Enjoy England brand values of Real, Fun and Indulgent. With 95% of visitors to www.visitbritain.com/us wanting to purchase services and products from the UK industry online via VisitBritain, Red Letter Days experiences will be rolled out around the world through www.visitbritain.com in 2007.

-ENDS-

Further information:

Elliott Frisby, Corporate PR Manager on 020 8563 3035, mob: 07951 996241

Sian Brenchley, Press Officer on 020 8563 3220, mob: 07971 497047

Notes to editors

• VisitBritain is responsible for promoting Britain as a world class tourist destination and for developing England's visitor economy. It has representatives in 36 countries around the world and, in the last three years, has expanded into China, throughout Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, and increased its presence in India with representatives in Bangalore and Mumbai.
• VisitBritain's international website, www.visitbritain.com, was awarded World's Leading Tourism Authority Internet Site for the third year in a row at the 2006 World Travel Awards by more than 200,000 travel and tourism professionals. With information provided in 26 different languages, every year over 12 million visits are made by international consumers to the 46 websites that make up visitbritain.com. VisitBritain plans to increase this to 25 million by 2009.
• In 2005, there were 30 million visitors to Britain, 8% up on 2004. They spent £14.2 billion in the UK: a 9% increase on 2004.
• Since its launch in 2003, Enjoy England has launched major campaigns for Waterside, Taste, Outdoor, Relax and City Culture as well as the annual Enjoy England Great Ideas publication and movie maps to inspire British visitors. It now operates in four near-European markets: France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands.
• An archive of media releases, information on VisitBritain's marketing activities, print quality, free-to-download images and more details about the work of VisitBritain in promoting Britain as a destination, can be found on VisitBritain's online press centre, www.visitbritain.com/presscentre

About Red Letter Days

Created in 1989, Red Letter Days pioneered the concept of giving experiences as unforgettable gifts. Now owned by Dragons Den entrepreneurs, Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis, Red Letter Days offers an unrivalled choice of hundreds of experiences across the UK and abroad. Experiences can be purchased online at www.redletterdays.co.uk Red Letter Days. Unforgettable Gifts. First Class Service.