A LEADING tourism expert is to carry the North-East bid for European Capital of Culture status to foreign shores on behalf of his home city.

Former British Tourism Authority chief executive Jeff Hamblin will help to develop an international strategy to attract tourists to tie in with the area's tilt for the culture capital title in 2008.

The Newcastle-Gateshead Initiative, which is overseeing the bid, believes 57-year-old Mr Hamblin's international expertise will be an invaluable addition to the campaign.

Newcastle-born Mr Hamblin joined Northumbria Tourist Board in the 1970s, before moving on to its East Midlands counterpart and then the British Tourist Authority, working in Canada, the rest of the Americas and Europe, before returning to the UK as chief executive in 1998.

Having admired developments on the Quayside and surrounding areas of Tyneside for 20 years, he said he was convinced that tourism will be "a key economic driver" for the North-East.

"I'm confident that 2008 will deliver a much higher level of overseas visitors," he said.

He believes the opportunity is there to "kick-start" the leisure and business tourism sectors, and transform the area generally - as was the case when Glasgow enjoyed its reign as European Capital of Culture in 1990.

Mr Hamblin has already started spreading the word, highlighting the Newcastle-Gateshead case in Madrid, Copenhagen and Amsterdam in the past fortnight.