PLANS for Britain's biggest campaign to promote the tourism industry have been unveiled.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell announced the £40m funding to help kick-start tourism following the double blow of September 11 and the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

The money will be focused on an international advertising campaign.

Tourists deserted the countryside after footpaths were closed during the foot-and-mouth epidemic.

The September 11 attacks hit the airline industry hard. Newcastle's Gill Airways ceased trading and laid off 240 staff, while British Airways announced plans to cut flights by ten per cent - with a possible knock-on for its 1,000 call centre staff in Newcastle.

Launched in April, the campaign will set out all the attractions on offer in Britain.

Middlesbrough company P&O Ferrymasters will form part of a coalition, along with the British Hospitality Association, which will spearhead the campaign.

The first official attraction visitor figures for last year showed the full extent of the tourist downturn, with London the worst hit.

The Laing Art Gallery, in Newcastle, owned by Tyne and Wear Museums, was one of the few attractions that enjoyed a rise in numbers.

It had almost 1.5m visitors last year, an increase of 15 per cent.

A spokeswoman for the Beamish Open Air Museum, near Chester-le-Street, County Durham, said its visitor numbers had fallen slightly last year.

She said: "We have had a great number of visitors who live in the region coming here, but the number of tourists visiting the area from outside are very definitely down."

A survey by the British Hospitality Association showed that the industry is definitely on the mend.

Almost half of provincial hotel owners believed that trading would be better in the first three months of this year, compared to January to March, last year