Whether you’re a long-time member, newly signed up or member-to-be, we want to ensure you know how to make the most of Visit West membership. 

Check and update your product listings

Showcase your business to our audiences. Our member listings get excellent traffic and this is your chance to shine. Send us good seasonal images, update your opening times, add your social media feeds, talk about accessibility and give consumers that reason to visit your business. 

You can take advantage of tailored descriptions across our suite of websites, meaning you can change your messaging depending on the audience. The needs of the travel trade are different to those of a consumer or someone looking to book a conference venue, for instance.

To update your listings e-mail us your changes.

Backlinks to Visit Bristol and Visit Bath

Backlinks are essential for improving your SEO ranking and are especially valuable when they come from a high-authority, popular websites – like Visit Bristol and Visit Bath. What’s more, Google and other search engines reward reciprocal linking, so shared links between our site and yours will help us both rank higher.

Another benefit of backlinks to Visit Bristol and Visit Bath is that they provide a quick, easy way to share up-to-date information with your visitors and guests. Save yourself the job of researching, writing and updating valuable content about visiting Bristol, Bath and the surrounding area and point them in the direction of our pages instead.

Event listings

Our What’s On pages on Visit Bristol and Visit Bath are one of the most visited areas of our websites, so uploading your events here is a sure-fire way to get plenty of eyes on them and hopefully more attendees. These pages are also a key resource for our marketing team when planning campaigns – we refer to the listings for blog posts, social media content, newsletters and press releases as well as our major Christmas and summer campaigns.

How to submit event details:

• Visit Bristol online form here.
• Visit Bath online form here.

Contant callouts

We do weekly content callouts in our member member newsletter (please speak to the team if you do not currently receive this) to share what themes we are working on across blogs, social media and more. Please let us know what you're up to so we can mention it across our channels.

• View 2023 content calendar

Press releases

As mentioned above, event listings help form our press releases, which cover what’s on and what’s new in Bristol and Bath. These are sent to longer-lead press as well as weeklies, dailies and local media.

The more we know about what you’ve got on, the more chance there is of being included in these round-ups and garnering some great coverage. As well as uploading your events you can email your own press releases, latest news or any images you would like used to us, it doesn’t matter how far in advance or how brief updates may be.

Media visits

Our Media Team are responsible for co-ordinating press trips for journalists, bloggers, and influencers, planning itineraries that include our members who best match the writer’s niche or brief.

Offering complimentary visits is a great way to win yourself some top coverage. If you’re keen to welcome more press, it’s a great idea to get your business included on our media pass. We hand these out to all visiting journalists and influencers, so they can enjoy complimentary access to a number of attractions and tours during their stay.

Do email our Media Team if you would like to know more about our work with the press.

Attend member events

It’s important for us to share our latest news and developments with you, which is why we host members forums, webinars, workshops and an annual conference.

As a member you’ll be invited to all our regular forums, where we give an update on the progress of our campaigns, share what’s next and how you can get involved. These are always a good chance to network too, not only with our team but fellow members who make up the local tourism industry.

Our Annual Tourism Conference is an opportunity to hear the successes of the previous year and what to look forward to in the year ahead. This event always includes relevant industry guest speakers and lots of opportunities for networking.

• See our upcoming events

Social media

Both Visit Bristol and Visit Bath have a formidable social presence that’s ever-growing. Visit Bristol has 55k followers on Facebook, 95k on Twitter, 77k on Instagram, and Visit Bath has 54k on Facebook, 34k on Twitter and 63k on Instagram (as of January 2023).

We cram in as much about members into our own content plans as possible, but to maximise your presence even further, we encourage you to use our hashtags (#VisitBristol and #VisitBath) and tag us (@VisitBristol and @VisitBath) in your own posts. That way our followers are likely to come across your content and we are able to engage with and share posts where appropriate.

Keep in touch

Our members can receive an exclusive newsletter that keeps you up to date with important industry news and campaigns we are working on, this is sent out every Friday – sign up here. Follow our weekly content call outs through the newsletter to see what campaigns or upcoming blogs you can get involved with.

Keep us updated with all your latest news, ideas, updates to your website listing – whatever you want to discuss, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. You can find contact details of everyone in our team under ‘Meet the team’ in the About Us menu.

For the most up to date corporate information from Visit West follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter and Instagram. Along with our own news we share members news, job vacancies, achievements and help keep you up to date.

Additional digital advertising opportunities

If you’re looking for extra advertising through the Visit Bristol and Visit Bath channels then do consider our additional advertising opportunities that are available to all our members. Options include featured website pages, web banners and inclusion in our consumer newsletter. These are a great way to secure even further and more targeted coverage.

For more information on these please email Lisa Franklin

• Additional Digital Advertising Opportunities

Competitions

Silver, gold and partner members can get involved in Visit Bristol and Visit Bath consumer competitions. We run two types of competitions, giving the public the chance to win unrivalled experiences from our members. The first is a social media giveaway. This is a ‘comment to enter’ style competition that gets published on our relevant Facebook page, getting excellent engagement. A social giveaway lasts for two or three days before a winner is randomly selected; a short-term piece of promotion for event tickets or your new product or service. 

Alternatively, we run a package competition on the website, usually including an activity, somewhere to eat and somewhere to sleep for the winner. These are longer promotions that provide great exposure for your business; they usually run for three weeks and are mentioned on all social media platforms as well as our consumer e-newsletters.

To get involved in these please email our Marketing team.

Meet Bristol and Bath

The below Meet Bristol and Bath benefits are only available to gold and partner members with an interest in the business events, conference and meeting market as well as leisure.

Keep us up to date

We have dedicated Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, plus a monthly newsletter that targets event planners. We're always open to promoting relevant member news through these channels. Pass on details of your refurbishments, new function rooms, special offers, events and anything else you think will appeal to event organisers.

Venue finding service

Keeping your Venue Directory profile as up to date and engaging as possible is vital to ensure you get the best possible results from our venue finding service. The information from there is included in the proposals we send directly to clients. Do let us know if you need help in contacting Venue Directory.

Accommodation providers

In addition to contracted bedroom allocations, we are working with Bookingzon to provide bespoke websites for large events that require multi-venue allocations. Your hotel will need to set up a profile and then quote for allocations when requested. This allows you to have great exposure to delegates attending events at various venues across the city and its surrounding areas. Speak to Helen if you would like to set up a profile.

Partner with us to win business

We can assist your bid for events in several ways, including provision of content, city information, city images and videos. For international conferences, there may be the opportunity to apply for funding via the VisitBritain Business Event Growth Support Fund. 

Incentive Travel Marketing

We're also marketing Bristol and Bath as incentive travel destinations, centred around the diverse and exciting experiences on offer in theses cities. If you deliver any interesting experiences or are collaborating with local suppliers to do so, we want to know about it.

Trade shows

We attend multiple trade events each year, some of which present opportunities for partners to stand share with us. Do get in touch with Helen for further details.