THE UK's tourism chief, Lord Colin Marshall, is to visit some of the North-East's top attractions during a whistlestop tour of the region today.
Lord Marshall is chairman of VisitBritain - the body that markets Britain to the rest of the world.
He is expected to visit the award-winning Beamish open air museum, in County Durham, with stops at the Millennium Bridge on the River Tyne and The Sage, in Gateshead.
Lord Marshall will also meet tourism officials from the North-East, including John Sands, the chairman of the North-East Tourism Advisory Board and John Holmes, the director of regeneration and tourism at regional development agency One NorthEast.
He will discuss how tourism is helping to shape and develop the economy.
Tourism now contributes more than £1bn to the North-East economy and the past two years have seen a year-on-year increase in the number of visitors coming to the North-East.
Beamish museum recently won the region's first ever gold award in the visitor attraction catgeory in the Enjoy Excellence national awards - recognised as the Oscars of the tourism industry.
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