1 May 2025 Trade Update
Welcome to the latest update from the VisitGuernsey team.
01 May 2025
Welcome to the latest update from the VisitGuernsey team. We have an opportunity for you to get involved with Liberation Day, a look at our partnership with the Royal Academy of Arts, a new Food Festival, and a new ferry operator. Please see the agenda below.
Agenda:
- Seatrade Cruise Global: Learn about Guernsey's attendance this global B2B cruise event
- Beaches of Normandy Tours: Will be operating tours this autumn.
- Responsive London Campaign goes live: Learn about our latest out-of-home campaign
- Pick up your 'We accept Euros' stickers
- Busy start to the season: Encouraging forward bookings for the year ahead
- Liberation 80 just over a week away: Get prepared for the best Liberation celebration yet
- Find My Past: Discover genealogy tourism opportunities
- Spring Walking Festival : Learn about the event.
If you would like more information about anything in this newsletter, or if there is anything we can do to help, please get in touch by emailing enquiries@visitguernsey.com or calling 01481 223552.
Guernsey represented at Seatrade Cruise Global
In April Mark Renouf, Cruise Operations and Business Development Manager, and Jo Ferguson, VisitGuernsey Marketing Manager attended Seatrade Cruise Global, the largest annual gathering of the cruise industry hosting more than 600 exhibitors and 70+ cruise line brands.
They highlighted new port developments, including Berth 1 allowing ships of up to 130m LOA (length overall) to call in alongside the harbour, the new Cruise Guernsey social media channel and re-joined Cruise Europe, a B2B network of cruise ports.
Read more here.
Beaches of Normandy Tours
The Beaches of Normandy tour operator recently visited Guernsey to research and launch a suite of exciting packages. Their detailed packages, from 3-star to 5-star luxury, perfectly match our heritage.
We are thrilled to introduce their new Normandy, D-Day, and Channel Islands tour, which promises to be a fantastic addition to their historic themed tours. We also connected them with Jersey to captures the unique wartime history of the Channel Islands.
Read more here.
Responsive London campaign goes live
From this week, an exciting new campaign has gone live in and around central London. More than 200 locations are included in the campaign, split across rail and street furniture (e.g., digital ad space on bus stops) with some of those specific to Waitrose stores.
The campaign is cleverly designed to capitalise on the various situations they are seen in, all timed to get in front of key commuters at peak times and weekends. With 153 tailored variations we can show adverts that react to the weather, temperature and journey times. It is estimated that a total of more than 9 million people will see the campaign.
Click here to see what these ads look like.
Pick up your 'We accept Euros' stickers
As part of the collaborative work we continue to do to ensure we are capitalising on the increase in European visitors we are seeing, we have produced ‘We accept Euros’ stickers and posters to display in the windows of your businesses. If you would like one, they are free to collect from the new Visitor Information Centre, Market Square.
Busy start to the season
Apply for your 2025 boarding permit before 31st March to continue advertising and accepting visitors.
Visitor numbers were encouraging over the Easter break and we have now welcomed the first three cruise ships of the season. As a result we have seen some encouragingly positive local media coverage, read more here:
Liberation 80 just over a week away
We are now making the final preparations for the 80th anniversary celebrations of Liberation Day. This year will see many of the main events taking place in St Peter Port, supported with some fantastic parish events taking place on the 9th May and across the following weekend. There are hundreds of events and activities taking place, for the full details go to Home | Liberation Day Guernsey and share with your visitors. We look forward to seeing your businesses festooned with bunting as the big day gets closer – don’t forget to download and display your Decorate to Liberate 2025 poster.
Walking Festival advertising
This year’s Spring Walking Festival will soon be upon us, and our work to promote it is already underway. The 16-day festival, which runs from 24th May to 8th June across all five Islands, comprises 55 walks, including 18 brand new walks for 2025.
In February we ran full-page adverts in RHS The Garden and Country Walking, which have a combined readership of 566,041 people. This has already resulted in the festival organisers receiving booking enquiries from off-island, which is a very promising start.
All 55 walks are live on the VisitGuernsey website here, and a brochure listing the walks will soon be made available to promote to your customers.
Read more here.
Discover genealogy tourism opportunities
FindMyPast, a major UK-based family history online database, partnered with key stakeholders to digitise and make available Guernsey’s historic records. The new collection, includes over 210,000 records from Guernsey, Alderney and Sark. This project has enormous importance for people with connections to the islands seeking more insight and information about relatives but it also has a wider, equally strong relevance, in helping to highlight our island on an international level.
Offering great opportunities for Genealogy Tourism – VisitGuernsey will tap into a new audience - targeting travellers that are looking to trace their roots. Want to work with us on this exciting project? Get in touch with Jo.ferguson@gov.gg
