Culture bosses team up with Expedia in a bid to attract visitors to Glasgow

Before the pandemic, visitors from the US, Canada and Germany collectively accounted for 236,000 annual tourist trips to Glasgow, and some £75 million in visitor spend.

The initiative is being implemented across three of the city's core international markets to help drive the recovery of the visitor economy following the impact of the pandemic.

The digital campaign will direct potential visitors to dedicated 'Glasgow hub' landing pages on Expedia's website for their country.

It will promote airline tickets, hotels, and profiles several of the city's world-class visitor attraction including the reopening of the Burrell Collection in March 2022.

The imitative will run until the end of March this year in a bid to drive tourists back to the city.

Councillor David McDonald, chairman of Glasgow Life and depute leader of Glasgow City Council, said: "The majority of our international tourists come from Europe and North America.

"In 2019, Glasgow attracted more North American visitors than Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham, and almost as many as those three cities combined.

"So it's hugely important for our visitor economy that we continue to promote the city's world-class cultural profile to our core international markets."

Before the pandemic, international tourism in Glasgow reached a record high in 2019, attracting 771,000 overseas visitors.

There was record spending at £381m - a nine per cent increase on the previous year. International expenditure outperformed the Scottish average in 2019 - at a national level, spending increased seven per cent year on year to £2.5bn.

Attractions profiled as part of the campaign include Hampden Park Stadium and Museum Tour, Celtic Park Stadium Tour, Mackintosh at the Willow and Tennent's Brewery Tour.

Jim Clarkson, Regional Leadership Director (west), VisitScotland said: "Through our national marketing activity with Expedia we have been inspiring visitors to consider Scotland as their destination of choice when making future travel plans.

"We work with Glasgow Life on international marketing campaigns and this activity will be able to build on the recent success where Glasgow has been the second most popular destination in bookings from the US, based on total gross room nights booked through the online travel company."