David Cameron has said UK tourism must focus on its great heritage and be proud of its national assets, and forget the Cool Britannia image advocated by New Labour.

In a speech at London's Serpentine Gallery, the Prime Minister said tourism represents a huge opportunity for the economy, but Britain is currently not doing enough to become one of the top-five most visited destinations in the world.

He accused the Labour government of raiding National Lottery money and taking money away from heritage because it didn’t go with the Cool Britannia image that it was trying to promote.

Cameron said this attitude should be replaced with pride in our country and what it has to offer. Although more than one-seventh of England is designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty; it is only ranked 24th in the world on natural beauty. It all comes down to perception, he said, and not enough has been done to celebrate our country.

“I love our historic monuments, our castles, country houses, churches, theatres and festivals. I love our national parks, our hundreds of historic gardens and national network of waterways. And our museums - including three of the five most visited art museums in the world right here in London - the British Museum, the National Gallery and the Tate Modern,” he said.

“We have so much to be proud of, so much to share with each other, and so much to show off to the rest of the world.”

He also urged travel industry figures to focus on attracting Chinese tourists in particular to the UK as we only have 0.5 per cent of the market share. If this was increased to just 2.5 per cent it would bring in an additional £500 million to the UK economy and create as many as 10,000 new jobs.

Similarly, the UK has 3.5 per cent of the world market for international tourism. He said that for every half a per cent increase in this share, £2.7 billion is pumped into the economy, creating more than 50,000 jobs in the process.

“At a point when our economy is coming back from the brink - we just can't let this sort of opportunity pass us by,” he urged.

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