Great Britain Shines On and Off the Screen

England, Scotland and Wales tout their tourism products at a trade show staged in Mexico’s Riviera Maya. Britain’s filming locations played a starring role.

In keeping with the “Starring GREAT Britain” campaign launched earlier this year and continuing into next, VisitBritain really put on a show during its recent trade mission at an all-inclusive resort in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. The powerful draw of movies and TV shows filmed in Britain was a constant theme throughout the festive three-day affair.

As a media guest, I was among the delegates attending Destination Britain Americas (DBA), a Hollywood-flavored event spotlighting the UK’s tourism regions, visitor attractions and other travel suppliers. The star-studded cast of British tourism interests included DMOs Cotswolds Plus, Experience Oxfordshire, Visit Birmingham & the West Midlands, Marketing Manchester, Visit Liverpool, Visit Lake District, VisitWales and VisitScotland, to name a few.

“Inbound tourism is one of the UK’s most valuable service exports and a major part of British trade, worth an estimated £34.9 billion to the economy in 2025,” said VisitBritain CEO Patricia Yates, who led the trade mission. The latest forecast estimates 5.5 million visits from the USA to the UK in 2025, with American visitors expected to spend £7.2 billion on their trips.

Britain: As Seen on TV and the Silver Screen

Just about every destination at DBA played up its filming locations, from the James Bond, Harry Potter, Downton Abbey, Star Wars and Mission Impossible franchises to the new Frankenstein movie filmed in Scotland and available on Netflix starting in November.

For example, I learned about a new product that clearly aligns with the “Starring GREAT Britain” promotion – Oxford Official Walking Tours’ two-hour “Oxford on Screen” – during my appointment with Hayley Beer-Gamage, CEO of Experience Oxfordshire.

Yates, commenting on the current “filmed-in-Britain” campaign, said the latest research shows that among those considering a trip to the UK, 9 out of 10 surveyed would be interested in visiting a film or TV location.

“People now are looking for connections and want something authentic,” she told me. “They have an emotional connection to what they see on the screen.”

With our country’s America250 celebration on the horizon, 2026 also will see British destinations promoting historic estates and other sites with ties to America, Yates said.

Productive Meetings and Informative Talks

In 1,200 one-on-one meetings over two days with 53 British suppliers, 47 buyers from the U.S., Canada and Brazil, along with the 12 media guests at DBA, discovered dozens of other new developments, from hotel openings to The Storied Lands, a history-themed park in County Durham that will feature live-action shows and immersive walk-through experiences touching on everything from Vikings to Victorians. The park is set to open in summer 2026. I saw renderings of the new park during my appointment with Sarah Johnson, marketing & communications manager of Visit County Durham.

Over cocktails later in the day, Kevin Thuman, owner and CEO of Prime Tours in Columbus, Ohio, said he also had a productive meeting with Johnson. He works with brass bands that travel and found out that County Durham has a rich brass band heritage and can provide appropriate performance spaces for traveling bands. Known for its community and student brass bands, the county hosts the annual eight-day Durham Brass Festival. (You never know what you’re going to learn at these brief get-togethers.)

In addition to one-on-one sessions on the show floor, DBA featured stage presentations by VisitScotland, VisitWales and ABBA Voyage, a wildly popular London concert experience celebrating the music of the Swedish pop group through a cast of digital avatars backed by a live 10-piece orchestra.

Caitlyn McLeod, CEO of VisitScotland, told the audience that the North American market makes up 25 percent of international arrivals and represents 39 percent of tourism spending. Discussing trends in sustainable tourism, she said that today’s globetrotters are looking for transformative, meaningful travel, stressing that “people want experiences over things and are not satisfied with something just off the shelf.”

What’s New in Great Britain

British suppliers also brought our attention to some new openings, including:

• King Charles III England Coast Path – The 2,700-mile National Trail, with expected completion in spring 2026, will go all around England’s coast, connecting the island nation’s many coastal towns and ports.
• Wrexham Museum Complex – The city best known for its football team will soon host Wales’ first football museum, which will be part of the new Wrexham Museum in the current museum building. (Americans are familiar with “Welcome to Wrexham,” the television documentary series about an underdog soccer team.)
• Hull Maritime Museum – Re-opening spring 2026 after major restoration (East Midlands/Yorkshire)
• Scottish Dark Sky Observatory (Galloway Forest Park) – Rebuilt after a 2021 fire, re-opening following £1.5 million refurbishment
• Caerphilly Castle (Wales) – The country’s largest castle has reopened its Great Hall and will launch a new visitor center in 2026.
• Manchester Town Hall – The grand Victorian landmark in Albert Square, closed for refurbishment since 2019, will reopen in 2026. Regarded as one of the finest examples of Neo-Gothic architecture in the United Kingdom, it will offer access to unseen areas for the first time.
• Manchester City FC Hotel – A new 401-room hotel is one component of upcoming enhancements that await Manchester City football fans at Ethiad Stadium. Opening in late 2026, The Medlock, a four-star property in the Radisson Hotel Group portfolio, will be connected to the stadium. A single upper tier will increase stadium capacity, and there will be a sky bar with views overlooking the pitch, a stadium roof walk experience, museum, new club shop, and covered City Square fan zone with food and drink outlets.

Hidden  London Tours

One of my favorite meetings was with Alexandra Rocheteau-Hasan, groups and travel trade manager of the London Transport Museum. As a big fan of riding the Tube in London, I was intrigued by her descriptions of the museum’s Hidden London tours, a program that takes groups into disused Tube stations, tunnels and tracks with stories to tell. They are offered year-round and can be booked at ltmuseum.co.uk/hidden-london.

On the museum’s “Charing Cross: Behind the Silver Screen” walking tour, you walk beneath Trafalgar Square, peer down on Northern Line trains and platforms through a secret ventilation shaft, and explore the station’s closed-off Jubilee Line platforms, corridors and concourses, which last saw passengers over 25 years ago. The guided tour of Charing Cross station shows how closed areas can have surprising uses – from training staff and experimenting with new designs to serving as a filming location for TV and film productions. The shuttered Aldwych station, another frequent filming site open for tours, was a hiding place for priceless art and a shelter from air raids during World War II.

These fascinating London underground tours also grabbed the attention of buyer Jeremy Lawthorn, vice president of Richmond, Virginia-based Fellowship Travel International. He told me he is always looking for these kinds of experiential, behind-the-scenes activities that leave clients with lasting memories.

Mixing Fun with Business

Besides scheduled meetings, DBA delegates had many opportunities to network and socialize outside the convention center. On our small-group dine-around night, three of us Americans broke bread with British delegates at Lemon Fish, the resort’s Latin-fusion restaurant.

In one late-afternoon class at the resort (Paradisus La Perla), each of us was given ingredients for making guacamole, and with a chef’s guidance, we did well. The next day our culinary project was combining raspberry jam, custard and desiccated coconut to make Manchester tarts, a popular pastry available throughout England. Easy as pie.

In a drawing at a media breakfast featuring brief presentations by British DMOs, Experience Oxfordshire awarded one lucky journalist a two-night stay at the stately home Heythrop Park – and the winner…drum roll, please…was me. The package included a private tour of Blenheim Palace with afternoon tea or lunch in The Orangery; a generous gift card to use at Bicester Village, a designer outlet mall; admission to Waddesdon Manor with afternoon tea; the “Oxford on Screen” walking tour; and Bodleian Libraries with tour and tea. It looks like I am Oxford-bound in 2026. Yay!

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By Randy Mink, Senior Editor

Lead Photo – At Destination Britain Americas’ opening-night reception, a Mexican mariachi band performed against backdrops of British tourist attractions. (Randy Mink Photo)

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