Visit Lincolnshire is urging hospitality and tourism businesses to be ready to welcome back international visitors as the travel season reopens with COVID testing-free travel for fully vaccinated travellers.

The requirement to take a lateral flow test for inbound visitors to England ended at 4am today, Friday 11 February, and Visit Lincolnshire is preparing to support county tourism and hospitality businesses with sector specific free resources and masterclasses to help build back an industry vital to the county’s economy

‘Business.VisitLincolnshire’, Visit Lincolnshire’s new business website, has launched with a wealth of guidance and support for businesses in the visitor economy in advance of both anticipated increases in inbound travel and with the intention of supporting businesses to help them retain their UK based travellers too.

Lincolnshire County Council’s Tourism Manager, Mary Powell, welcomed the update in travel restrictions, saying,

“We want to ensure that Lincolnshire is ready for the arrival of inbound tourists visiting the county, and also of course able to retain the many UK based visitors who have discovered and enjoyed all that the county has to offer over the past two years.

“As we approach the new holiday season, now is the perfect time to give hospitality and tourism businesses an update on skills and boost on resources with Visit Lincolnshire’s free new business platform.

“Business.visitlincolnshire.com is home to industry tools, advice and support needed for a wide range of tourism business skills such as recruitment, HR, business planning, social media marketing and much more.  And it’s all freely accessible for any business to tap into.”

International visitors to Greater Lincolnshire have historically spent over £93million in our region* and before the pandemic travel was the UK’s third largest industry.

“Tourism is a hugely important economic, social and cultural asset to Lincolnshire, benefitting many local businesses and services within hospitality and leisure” Mary Powell continues.

We hope that by using the online platform and also one to one business support available through our partnership with Business Lincolnshire and the visitor economy sector specific advisor – businesses can feel ready for the next stage of COVID recovery and prepared to welcome holidaymakers both from the UK and further afield once again.”

 

See the full travel requirements to enter England from another country on the UK GOV website here.

 

*Source:  Visit Britain – Overview of International visitors to the UK 2019 Lincolnshire & Northern Lincolnshire.