Visitor Management & Marketing

The Royal Borough is home to more than 20 visitor attractions, one appearing in the UK’s Top 20 [VisitBritain 2005]. Windsor Castle is in a unique position in that it is the largest inhabited castle in the world and the favourite weekend home of the Queen.

LEGOLAND Windsor was the largest investor in tourism in England when it opened in 1996 at a cost of £84M and has invested steadily ever since, with visitor numbers rising from 1.1M in its first year to 1.32M in 2003.

Approximately 1M people attend events in the Royal Borough each year – over 300,000 of these coming in just five days for the famous Royal Meeting at Ascot.

Our smaller attractions and events range from 5,000 visitors up to 250,000 visitors and offer a choice second to none.

For regional data please visit the Tourism South East Industry website.

The tourism product is always developing and offering new dimensions to the Visitor

• Windsor Castle: restoration after the fire of 1992 and the opening of additional rooms (Semi-State Rooms), the opening of the Jubilee Garden, the BBC documentary ‘The Queen’s Castle’ (2005), the televised blessing in St George’s Chapel following the Royal Wedding in April 2005 have all kept Windsor Castle at the forefront of international media interest

• LEGOLAND Windsor brings out a major new ride or show every year, with additional smaller enhancements

• Windsor Royal Shopping, situated within the Grade I listed Royal Station, offered a completely new concept of shopping experience when it opened in 1997 and has won British Council of Shopping Centres awards since

• Al fresco dining and themed restaurants have altered the dining experience out of all previous recognition and the trend is continuing

• Dorney Rowing Lake is the venue for an increasing number of rowing and canoeing regattas and triathlon events. It is the venue for the 2006 World Rowing Championships and will host rowing, adapted rowing and canoeing events for the 2012 Olympics.

• Ascot Racecourse reopened in June 2006 after a £200 million redevelopment programme, the most extensive project of its type ever seen in Europe.

Access to the Royal Borough is unmatched – being 25 minutes from Heathrow and 55 minutes from Gatwick, it has two main line train stations for London, one of which connects to Waterloo and has allowed a new trend of European day-trippers. Easy access to the major networks of the M25, M4, M40, M1 and M6 makes 60% of the UK population less than three hours from the heart of the Royal Borough.

In total 7.3M visitors come to the Royal Borough each year for business or for pleasure, with about 10% staying overnight within the Royal Borough. Of these, 54% will stay in serviced accommodation and about 20% in self catering or camping. The remainder will make up the “visiting friends and relatives” market, not surprising as we have a mobile and relatively affluent resident population and Windsor is a garrison town.

The domestic market makes up about 61% of visitors to the Royal Borough; and the overseas market about 39%. With the surge in the short break market in recent years, the Royal Borough, in partnership with local hotels has been well placed to offer excellent heritage breaks, family fun weekends, high life breaks and country sports breaks. The visitor profile is fairly broad, with key segments as follows:

• mature couples from the UK, the US and northern Europe

• families (90% domestic, 10% overseas)

• youth educational groups from the UK and overseas

• DINKS (double income, no kids)

• Business single travellers

Tourism is worth £444M to the Royal Borough per annum, and makes up 10% of its GDP. Spend by sector in 2004 was as follows:

• £56M Accommodation

• £103M Retail

• £101M Catering

• £31M Attractions, Events and Entertainment

• £45M Transport

• £114M Linkage/related industries

Employing over 11,000 people, it is perhaps the largest sector of employment, in volume terms, in the Royal Borough. Unlike other industries, tourism tends to select from the local population and, therefore, the multiplier spend effect is greater in this industry than in many others.