Travel Weekly has teamed up with ITV to create an exclusive Backing Business Fund and support the travel industry’s return to growth.
The matched-funding initiative will see ITV give new and lapsed TV brands of all sizes access to an exclusive ring-fenced fund of £500,000 on a first-come, first-served basis if they meet qualifying criteria.
The Backing Business Fund forms part of a wider partnership between Travel Weekly and ITV which officially launched at the Future of Travel Conference on Thursday.
The partnership also includes new research into mainstream travel habits, designed to help travel brands create marketing plans for 2023.
The fund was announced at the conference by ITV business development director Jason Spencer.
He said: “We’re committed to helping travel businesses of all shapes and sizes to grow. Right now, it’s even more crucial that businesses are able to test and invest with confidence. This fund is based on like-for-like value whereby for every pound a brand invests, ITV will match it.
“What’s more, we are also offering creative production support – to help you make your TV ad – at cost. This adds up to experiencing the effectiveness of ITV for your business at a significantly lower cost of entry, enabling you to measure the impact and scale-up as a result.”
Spencer added: “We’ve seen how the power of TV can help brands grow and we can’t wait to continue the work we’re doing with Travel Weekly as we jointly focus on helping the travel industry supercharge growth in 2023.”
Lucy Huxley, Travel Weekly Group editor-in-chief, said: “Travel Weekly is committed to its four pillars of informing, inspiring, connecting and supporting the travel industry, and this partnership with ITV reflects our desire to help travel firms of all sizes rebound as strongly as possible as the world reopens.
“The travel industry was one of the worst-affected by restrictions imposed during the pandemic, so we are delighted to work alongside ITV to support the sector’s recovery through the Backing Business Fund, exclusive free-to-access consumer research and more invaluable insight.”
To find out more about the partnership between Travel Weekly and ITV, including the exclusive research and the Backing Business Fund, click here.