Bristol set to become a tourism hotspot in 2009

Bristol has been selected as one of the world’s ‘Top 10 Cities for 2009’ by DK Eyewitness, the world’s best-selling guidebook publisher. As the only UK city to be named within the list, Bristol will now feature in the DK Top 10 guidebook series. The other nine selected cities are: Buenos Aires, Gdansk, Washington DC, Vienna, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Fes, Seattle (USA) and Vilnius.

Bristol was praised for its strong shopping offer, following the opening of the £500 million Cabot Circus city centre shopping and leisure quarter and for its growing status as a ‘green’ destination, after it was named the 'most sustainable city in Britain' and selected as the only UK nominee for the title of ‘European Green Capital’.

Speaking on behalf of the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides, Anna Paynton said; “Bristol is often overlooked in favour of its more picturesque neighbour Bath, which tends to get a lot more attention. The book says that if you haven’t been to Bristol though you really should. The different pockets of the city have their individual charms and that’s why we included it in DK’s 2009 list. It’s a great city and one which has undergone quite a few changes over the last few years”

The selection of Bristol as one of the world’ top ten cities to visit in 2009 is the latest in a series of awards and accolades. These include:

- Bristol chosen as the only city in the UK to be short-listed for the first ever European Green Capital Award. The city has been pre-selected alongside seven other European top environmental cities out of 35 initial applications.

- On 9th November 2008, just days after being recognised as a potential European Green Capital, Bristol was then announced as the ‘UK’s Most Sustainable City’ in a separate independent assessment undertaken by Forum for the Future.

- Bristol was crowned ‘European City of the Year’ at the annual awards held by the Academy of Urbanism, whose 100 members include industry-leading architects, planners, engineers, developers and designers.

- Bristol's St Nicholas Market, managed by Bristol City Council was declared the ‘UK's Greenest Market’ by The National Market Traders Federation (NMTF) on 20th November 2008.

- Bristol’s new £500million retail development, Cabot Circus won the ‘Best Shopping Centre’ award at the 2008 MAPIC international retail development conference in Cannes on 21st November 2008

- Bristol was recently identified as the most attractive English city outside London for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI Magazine, 2008)

- Earlier in the year, Bristol was announced the UK’s First Cycle City

Coinciding with the increasing international recognition of Bristol’s achievements has been the successful reshaping of the way the city markets itself. Last month saw the merger of two of the city’s most successful partnerships, Destination Bristol and Broadmead Board. The move was designed to boost the marketing of Bristol on both national and international stages and to capitalise on the opportunities that are presented by Cabot Circus, and by the new cultural infrastructure that Bristol City Council and partners are investing in across the city of Bristol.

John Hallett, Managing Director of Destination Bristol said: “Bristol is an exciting city to visit right now. The DK Eyewitness Travel Guide commendation is not only evidence that Bristol is becoming one of the most talked about places in the UK, but it is also recognition that the city is well on its way to achieving something special on both a European and International scale”

Recent figures released by the International Passenger Survey (IPS), reveal that Bristol has overtaken Oxford and is now the seventh most visited city by international tourists to the UK. Some 470,000 overseas visitors came to Bristol in 2007, along with over 7 million visitors from the UK. Bristol International Airport is now one of the fastest growing UK airports with scheduled flights direct from over 70 global destinations, including New York. With the successful opening of Cabot Circus as one of the UK’s elite shopping destinations, both overseas and domestic visits to Bristol are expected to continue rising.