Chester is part of a new marketing initiative to bring more French visitors to the city working with England’s Heritage Cities.

England’s Heritage Cities is a partnership of 11 destinations including York, Bath and Oxford alongside Chester who have been successful in securing a share of the £2m Great UK Challenge Fund, part of the Government’s Great Britain Campaign.

The campaign - which is managed by Marketing Cheshire, Visit Greenwich and Visit County Durham and was on February 1 - promotes heritage cities in England to consumers in France to encourage them to explore beyond London.

It will target repeat visitors to England and utilise a range of digital channels including the reach of visitlondon.com to drive short breaks into the English regions.

Dedicated French website

A new dedicated French website www.heritagecities.com/fr has been set up and a programme of press visits from French media is taking place across the heritage cities.

Nicola Said, head of funded programmes at Marketing Cheshire, said: “Chester has lots to offer to overseas visitors and it is important that we are able to maximise any funding available to be able to do this. Playing a central role in the delivery of the campaign is part of our national and international partnership role and we have been able to showcase Chester at its best through this campaign to an important overseas market.”

Melanie Sensicle, chair of England’s Heritage cities, said: “We were delighted to receive this new funding from the Government’s Great Britain campaign to promote England’s world class heritage to French consumers.

Major tourism draw

“England’s heritage cities are a major tourism draw for both national and international visitors. This project will enable us to raise the profile of all the cities and their rural hinterlands and encourage more visitors to return to the UK to explore the beauty and quality of our heritage cities.”

The campaign will run for two months and will generate a new database of interested consumers which can be used for further marketing. It will also bring French journalists over to England to see the offer first hand.