Birmingham has taken an historic step by becoming the first city to sponsor two of its local football clubs - Aston Villa and Birmingham City. Marketing Birmingham have signed a 3 year contract with the teams in a project which will promote the visitbirmingham.com brand, in order to boost tourism in the city. The Chief Executive of Marketing Birmingham Neil Rami commented, "Football has a global audience of 3.13bn and is a major influence on tourism, helping to shape people's perceptions of a city, particularly with international visitors...it's the first time that a city has supported its football clubs in this way and we're very excited about the project." more...Key facts:
- 31.9m visitors to Birmingham in 2007, 1.5m more than 2006
- The campaign is to launch in September
- Visit Birmingham - the name of Marketing Birmingham's new leisure campaign
- Birmingham City Council is to fund Marketing Birmingham over 3 years
