US Connections

US Connections is one of the ‘Discover England Fund’ projects and aims to increase the number of inbound visitors to our region from the USA. Destination Plymouth is one of the 13 project partners.

Here is some information about the project and how it is showcasing our region to international visitors and how you as a business can work with international tour operators.

US Connections is working with travel trade (tour operators, DMCs, travel agents etc.) to get new product on sale to the US market. This is often a long- term process and is based on building relationships with travel trade partners, showcasing the new and interesting content that can be booked by trade. The project has established a cooperative agreement with four travel trade partners who are committed to selling destinations to their US client base. In order for them to do this successfully, they will need trade rates, availability and your support when they are contracting.

Read on to see the new themed itineraries, films and images for the US Connections project; how you can work with international trade and an introduction to the travel trade partners.

New Thematic Itineraries

‘US Connections’ highlights the cultural and historical links between our two nations. Research and testing has identified these themes as being the most appealing to US visitors. The itineraries are shared with tour operators to showcase to them the places to see, stay and things to do that they can then go on and contract directly with you as a business as part of a packaged tour.

The four themed itineraries are:

United Allies – highlighting the WWII connections between US and UK

Old Stories of the New World – show-casing stories of migration from UK to the US

Origins of Faith – Faith and religion

Ancestral Services – highlighting the places and resources US visitors can access to trace their family history tapping into the significant ancestral tourism market

The available documents can be viewed here 

Three itineraries have also been produced as part of a Military, Maritime and Industrial heritage project:

Fortification, Military and Medieval Strongholds
Industrial Connections
Spirit of Discovery

Images & Films

To support marketing and promotion of the themes, an online image library is made available to trade and media and four new films have been produced:

Image Library

Films and Itineraries

Useful Tools for Businesses

Research was conducted into the US market to help us better understand what visitors need and expect from a trip to England.

VisitBritain have extensive research on their website that is free to access, you can find out more about the inbound US market here 

A new training manual ‘Taking England to the World; An inbound tourism toolkit’ has been produced and is free of charge for tourism businesses. You can see the manual online or order a printed copy here 

The US Connections trade directory can be found here.

Travel Trade Partners

US Connections has established cooperative agreements with travel trade partners, who will be promoting and distributing the US Connections product to their clients. Full details of the partnerships can be seen here

If you would like to know more about the trade partners, and how you can work with them contact Destination Plymouth in the first instance.