A TOP travel writer has been commissioned to help promote Hampshire to the lucrative US market focussing on the connections between the county and America.

Hampshire is one of 13 destinations that will feature as part of Tour England – a project to create themed itineraries centred around Faith and Religion, Wartime and the Special Relationship and the Great Migration period including the Mayflower, which left for the new world from Southampton.

Fionn Davenport, Lonely Planet author and award-winning travel journalist, has been appointed as the content creator for Hampshire.

The US market is Hampshire’s most valuable overseas visitor markets,worth nearly £40m per annum. Seventy thousand US visitors spend 450,000 nights in the county annually. They spend £520 on average per visit.

Visitors from America are attracted by the county’s rich history and heritage, and many pass through Southampton and Portsmouth’s cruise terminals. In addition a significant number of US business related trips are also made to Hampshire’s meeting and conference venues.

The writer will be visiting sights and attractions with strong links to the USA including the giant D-Day Wall Map at Southwick House, near Fareham, where the supreme allied commander, General Dwight Eisenhower orchestrated the invasion of Normandy in 1944.

Fionn will also visit the newly refurbished D-Day Museum in Portsmouth which tells the story of this epic event (73,000 US troops embarked from Southern England on D-Day, a significant proportion from Hampshire’s ports) as well as Winchester Cathedral, where 15 centuries of English history lie.

“I can honestly say I haven’t looked forward to a project as much as this one for many years," said Fionn. "The opportunity to explore a chunk of England at a granular level is very exciting. I’ve been a travel writer for a long time, and it is these kinds of experiences, travelling around a country exploring attractions big and small, visiting famous sites and discovering less well-known ones, that remind me I have one of the best jobs in the world.”

Mel Kendal, Hampshire County Council's executive member for Economic Development, said: "We know that Hampshire is already a popular destination for US visitors who come to historic Winchester, and undertake a pilgrimage to the home of Jane Austen (still a highly popular figure in everyday US culture) but we think there’s even more that we can do to promote those places that Americans might have an actual connection with.

“Hampshire was the place that many people departed from for a new life in the US during the 19thand 20thcenturies; many US families will have had relatives that were here in the build-up and execution of the D-Day landings; and Winchester has a key place in Anglo Saxon and Medieval history that many present-day Americans will have ancestral and cultural connections with.”

Finance for US Connections is coming from the UK Government’s £40 million Discover England Fund, administered by VisitEngland, to promote the tourism.