A new and unlikely weapon is being deployed in the battle to woo tourists back to Britain. Faced with terrorist threats, poor weather and economic uncertainty, officials hope a string of major exhibitions opening in London will lure foreign visitors.
Although a drop in visitor numbers has dented Britain's income from international tourism by around £2 billion, salvation may well come in the form of several high-profile 'big name' art shows, starring works by Andy Warhol, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Jean Renoir and Thomas Gainsborough.
New research has revealed that major public art shows appeal to well-heeled tourists and, as a result, the promotion of these shows and their London venues will form a key plank in the UKOK campaign, launched by the British Tourist Authority last week.
The authority is offering a series of discounts on entry prices for visitors, including two for the price of one at Tate Britain's American Sublime show. But even without these special deals, the chance to see some of the world's greatest masterpieces is expected to bring at least two million visitors.
'Culture is one of the key reasons for coming to this country,' said a spokeswoman for the London Tourist Board. 'We are now doing everything we can to make sure that tourists hear about the quality of the exhibitions coming up.'
The Warhol exhibition, which opens on 7 February at Tate Modern, has already received wide international interest. Guaranteed a core audience of Warhol devotees, it will also enjoy a sizeable domestic boost from the Channel 4 documentary on the artist's life to be broadcast tonight.
London, where tourism is the second largest industry, has suffered the biggest financial hit in the last 12 months and so the city is at the centre of plans for national recovery. This week the London Tourist Board is to launch a marketing campaign, which will run until the end of March, to promote the destination. Costing half a million pounds, it aims to boost the number of visitor-nights being spent in the capital.
New focus group research carried out by the board has suggested that the so-called empty-nesters - older couples with high disposable income - are those most attracted by the city's galleries and museums.
This month the Royal Academy of Arts is beckoning tourists with a potentially record-breaking show. 'Paris: Capital of the Arts 1900-1968' features work by reliable box-office names such as Picasso, Dali, Modigiliani, Matisse and Diego Rivera.
In May, Tate Modern is the venue for another sure-fire success. 'MatissePicasso' will look at the close relationship between two of the most popular artists of all time. The exhibition travels on to Paris and New York, but starts in London, where it can rely on causing the longest queues.
While it is classics of modern art which tend to win the highest attendance figures, art is a fickle business and the old masters sometimes do unexpectedly well.
In 2000, the National Gallery's 'Seeing Salvation' show, which chronicled the portrayal of Christ through the millennium, drew 5,002 visitors a day, compared with just 1,647 at the Royal Academy's trendy 'Apocalypse' show.
By this reckoning, it is the rather more staid Gainsborough show, which comes to Tate Britain in October, that may prove a surprising but equally bankable hit. The exhibition brings together the largest-ever collection of works by the eighteenth-century master.
But the artistic rescue mission for British tourism is not just about London. Major gallery openings this year in the north of England are also hoped to bring in foreign art fans. When the Baltic Flourmill in Gateshead, one of the biggest spaces for contemporary art in Europe, opens later this year it is expected to do for the Newcastle area what the stylish new Guggenheim has done for Bilbao.
The refurbished Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and the new Manchester City Art Gallery, designed by Sir Michael Hopkins, are also expected to inspire holidaymakers with an eye for art and architecture.
