Westcountry seaside and coastal towns have been named among the UK's leading destinations for high-spending foreign tourists, new figures show.
To kickstart British Tourism Week, the VisitBritain quango has compiled research showing tens of thousands of overseas visitors flock to the Devon and Cornwall coast each year.
The figures bring into sharp focus the importance of the lucrative US and German markets – and emerging economies including Russia and India – who spend significantly more per head than Britons.
Some 66,000 overseas visitors flood Plymouth each year, doubtless driven by its historic association with the Pilgrim fathers who settled in America.
Penzance attracts around 30,000 visitors from beyond British shores annually, closely followed by Torbay which garners 29,000 overseas tourists a year.
Small coastal towns in the region are also magnets for foreign tourists despite being relatively small.
Newquay draws in 27,000 overseas visitors a year and St Ives 20,000. Falmouth gets 17,000.
Germans are eyeing South West beaches in greater numbers than any other market, VisitBritain said.
Germans, French, Americans, Spaniards and Australians are the four leading nationalities seduced by UK coastlines.
Patricia Yates, co-chair of British Tourism Week, said: "This new report shows how our coastal towns and seaside locations are an important part of our appeal to overseas visitors.
"As we open British Tourism Week, this research reminds us all that visiting one of our great seaside town offers visitors a quintessential coastal experience which is unique to Britain."
The body, which has seen its budget cut as a result of Government spending cuts, reckons that movies based and filmed in the UK, such as the Oscar-winning King's Speech has helped boost overseas trade.
The National Trust's Antony House in Torpoint, South East Cornwall, received a windfall after the Alice in Wonderland blockbuster was filmed there.
The VisitBritain report was published in the week the Eden Project celebrates its 10th anniversary.
Studies shows that the 12.8million people who have visited the Cornish landmark since it opened in 2001 – many from overseas – have spent £1.1billion in hotels and guest houses, shops and restaurants.
Its international appeal is such that an unnamed country in the Far East is currently looking a likely host for Eden's first international venture.
To launch tourism week, VisitBritain is hosting a series of parties across many of Britain's piers and jetties today.
Events are taking place in Falmouth, Looe, Newlyn and Weston-super-Mare.
Nearly four million foreign tourists spent £2 billion on trips to Britain in 2009, according to VisitBritain.
Around 13 per cent of the 30million overseas travellers who came to the UK in 2009 went to a coastal town or city.
While foreign tourists make up a small percentage of visitors to the region – around 10per cent – many think the Westcountry should capitalise on the London Olympics and the Royal wedding.
The report comes hard on the heels of the Government's tourist strategy which aims to put the sector at the heart of moving the economy away from relying on the South East and the public sector.
Recommendations to boost the industry, key to the health of the Westcountry, include scrapping the May Day bank holiday to extend the tourism season. But it also planned a strategy to offer tourists an alternative to London – which remains the major destination draw for overseas tourists – as other regions have a similarly eclectic range of attractions.
Tourism is Britain's fifth largest industry, worth around £115 billion to the economy.
It supports 2.6 million jobs and more than 200,000 small businesses – more jobs than construction or transport.
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