Tonbridge tourist firms invited to sign up to My Kent Big Weekend 2013

Tourism businesses, attractions and destinations of all sizes in Tonbridge and beyond can sign up now for My Kent Big Weekend 2013 and benefit from one of the most effective marketing campaigns in the county.

Visit Kent is once again organising a two-day celebration of the county's 4,000 tourism businesses – showcasing attractions on its state-of-the-art website and delivering powerful word-of-mouth-marketing throughout the year.

My Kent Big Weekend, March 23 and 24, will be the grand finale for English Tourism Week celebrations across the county.

My Kent Big Weekend 2012 broke all records when 80,207 Kent people applied for 16,500 free tickets to a wide range of destinationsranging from traditional attractions to opportunities to take part in bushcraft and art courses.

During the three weeks the website was open for applications, more than one million page views were recorded with, on average, people spending more than 11 minutes browsing through attractions and viewing at least 28 webpages while selecting which tickets to apply for.

Sandra Matthews-March, chief executive at Visit Kent which has organised the major free event for local people since it wasfirst launched in 2007, said: "Initially the Kent Big Day Out was developed to showcase our county's amazing variety of visitor attractions and destination to local people so that they could recommend great places to visit on their doorstep to friends and relatives. We saw this as important word-of-mouth marketing initiative particularly ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

"Growing the event to a whole weekend in 2011 enabled more attractions and more people to take part, making it one of the most successful events in the county calendar.

"The response from successful ticket applicants has been tremendous year on year. Ninety-one per cent of people who visited a destination with My Kent Big Weekend 2012 tickets said they would recommend it to others, while 97 per cent said their day out made them feel proud to live in Kent.

"Visit Kent is delighted to be able to continue this event for 2013 and we are hoping to be able to showcase an even wider range of attractions and visitor activities this time – particularly our smaller businesses.

"There is no maximum or minimum number of free tickets required for an attraction to take part, so it is a great opportunity for secret treasures able to entertain a handful of guests as well as larger destinations with lots of capacity at the beginning of the season.

"All will gain equal exposure on the My Kent Big Weekend website where the posted photographs and information enable ticket seekers and browsers to learn about different destinations to visit either over the event weekend or on another occasion."

To find out more about My Kent Big Weekend 2013 and how visitor businesses can take part, go to www.visitkentbusiness.co.uk and click on training and support, My Kent Big Weekend 2013.