UK tourist board VisitBritain will launch a three-year global campaign in 2010. The initiative will deal with key themes that encompass traditional Britishness, youth culture and high revenue tourism markets.

The group's campaign has been planned to coincide with the return of the UK's economic growth, which is expected to occur around the second quarter of next year.

During the first 10 months of 2009, 300,000 more inbound holiday visitors chose the UK as a holiday destination. In the three months to October, leisure and business inbound visitors spent GBP5bn while in the UK, up three per cent on the same period in 2008.

Sandie Dawe, VisitBritain chief executive, said: "Over recent years tourism has been the fastest growing industry in the world. In the UK, it is the fifth largest industry and third largest export earner.

"Our forecasts suggest that whilst 2010 will not see record numbers of inbound visitors or visitor spend, the prolonged weakness in the value of sterling will result in a stronger performance, particularly in visitor spend."