Blackpool News / Business Tourism Blackpool Heads to the British Tourism & Travel Show 19 March 2019 by Visit Blackpool VisitBlackpool and partners including Merlin Entertainments, Blackpool Transport, Sandcastle Waterpark and Funny Girls, are heading to the NEC, Birmingham this week for this year’s British Tourism & Travel Show on 20-21 March. The two-day event is a great opportunity for Blackpool and its partners to meet with the UK’s tourism and travel trade to showcase the resort’s fantastic attractions, shows, accommodation, events and what’s new for 2019, giving them a taster of what’s happening this year such as: The opening of the new four-star Boulevard Hotel at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, the latest in a series of “next generation” hotels to be built in the resort; A year-long programme of events to celebrate the 125th birthday of two of Blackpool’s most famous heritage assets – The Blackpool Tower and The Grand Theatre; Significant investment at key attractions, coming hot on the heels of last year’s huge £18m investment in the thrilling ICON rollercoaster at Pleasure Beach and a £5m elephant house attraction at Blackpool Zoo; Investment of almost £1m in events, guides, infrastructure and training to make Blackpool one of the country’s most accessible destinations for disabled people. A huge year-round events programme including new comedy and country music festivals at the Winter Gardens, the return of the Livewire Music Festival and the debut of the Breitling Team, Europe’s premier civilian jet formation team, at the free two-day Blackpool Air Show in August. The VisitBlackpool stand will be one of nearly 300 destinations and attractions on show at the event which will be attended by approximately 3,000 representatives from the tourism and travel trade including group travel, coach and tour operators and wholesalers. A VisitBlackpool spokesperson said: “This is the UK’s leading domestic tourism show and it gives us the opportunity to talk about Blackpool’s fabulous offer as well as highlighting what’s new for this year. “We are looking forward to meeting and talking to some of the country’s top operators to ensure they keep Blackpool on top of their list for group travel.” The VisitBlackpool team and partners will be based on Stand No C32 throughout the two-day event. For further information on Blackpool Travel Trade, please contact groups@visitblackpool.com or Tel 01253 478222 or visit the groups pages of www.visitblackpool.com