Tourism director urges people to use regional airport

A tourism company has encouraged people to "hop over the North Sea" and use a regional airport for their travels.

Pete Waters, executive director of Visit East of England, said that if tourists coming to the region from America travelled via the Netherlands they would be closer to their final destination.

He said Norwich Airport is used primarily for offshore industries and package holidays, but it would offer a "more convenient" option for tourists.

"The thing we've got to do is change the mindset that inland tourists immediately think of coming into Heathrow."

In conversation with people from Playtone, Tom Hanks' production company, who worked on Masters of the Air for Apple TV, they described their journey of arriving into Heathrow airport as taking up to two hours from when the plane hit the tarmac to getting through the airport.

Mr Waters said by using Amsterdam's Schiphol airport to fly to Norwich, it would save travellers time trying to reach their East of England destination.

"That's the kind of thing we want to encourage in the years to come, we think there is a great opportunity to get long haul into Schiphol and then hop over the North Sea into Norwich and Norfolk," he said.

"It's actually more convenient if you want to come to somewhere like Norfolk and the East of England."

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