Mark Di-Toro, corporate press officer at VisitBritain, describes a day that includes becoming a French TV star

My Day

6:00am:Wake up, check the BlackBerry for coverage reports, particularly happy with our feature offered to The Sun employment pages on the tourism industry included this morning. Watch BBC Breakfast for 20 minutes, but don’t actually eat breakfast, instead I grab a coffee. On the way to work I read the London Metro as it is the only national newspaper not waiting for me on my desk when I get in.

8.15am: Arrive, make another coffee, skim read the nationals and try and pick up on anything tourism related which would mean I get calls. Ash-cloud situation refuses to go away and I should be receiving our report from our research team regarding the impact of the second wave of the volcanic ash on the tourism industry.

9.00am: The rest of the team starts to arrive, usual banter of what we got up to last night ensues. Our research on volcanic ash has arrived, after giving it a good read and highlighting some key points I put together a statement. It turns out the second wave was not as bad as the first and most tourism businesses are optimistic about the future. I decide to call contacts at The Times and The Guardian to see if they would be interested in the story …They seem keen, let’s see what happens.

10.00am: Head off to Stratford for an exclusive tour of the London 2012 Olympic site. VisitBritain is an official partner of the Games and we are all working very closely with LOCOG to enhance the visitor experience Britain-wide. The site looks fantastic and the tour is extremely informative, emphasising the importance of creating a legacy and the general sustainability of the project in hand. Did you know that the media room is longer than Canary Wharf on its side? It is absolutely huge and will be kept as offices for independent small- and medium-size businesses to work from after the Games.

Now on my way back to the office and really excited about the 2012 Games, its legacy and the value it will provide to tourism in the UK. Check the BlackBerry again, call Olympics Correspondent at The Evening Standard and set up a lunch with myself and our Games Unit here at VisitBritain.

11.30am: Get back to my desk to find an interview request from TalkSport. It loved our Premier League player interviews which are up on our site visitbritain/football.com. I’m glad to see the press release I sent out last week is creating quite a stir amongst broadcasters and print alike. International stars such as Brad Friedel, Brede Hangeland, Andrei Arshavin and Cesc Fabregas talk about how much they love working, living and holidaying in Britain. (Let’s see how long that lasts for Fabregas!)

12.30pm: I brief our head of partnerships for the TalkSport interview, he now knows everything about our partnership with the Premier League and the player interviews so shouldn’t have any problems later …all set up and packaged.

1.30pm: Head down to the ridiculously cheap canteen which we share with the Department for International Development (DFID). Hot lunch for less than three quid, not bad for central London! General catch up with colleagues and may even say hello to the Queen as we are based opposite Buckingham Palace!

2.15pm: I arranged for France2 Television to come into the office, the crew has flown over from Paris to do a programme on the power of film tourism. VisitBritain really does lead the way on this so we have bent over backwards to accommodate the television crew and make sure they film everything they need.

First we are all filmed at our desks, working on film tourism projects such as Robin Hood and Sherlock Holmes. I then set up an interview with our Brand Partnership manager to talk about all the work we have done, in particular around the recent release of Robin Hood, which we have all recently come back from the British Premier in Nottingham.

3.30pm: France2 Television crew kidnap me in their rent-a-car and we go and find famous British film locations using our free smart phone app which VisitBritain produced called ‘the British film location app’. They film me using the iphone to find various locations such as the infamous blue door in Notting Hill (which isn’t blue anymore), Brompton Cemetery from Sherlock Holmes and platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross from Harry Potter. At all the locations I do a short piece to camera explaining where I am and a few quirky bits of information about the location.

4.45pm:  France2 drop me back at the office and I am soon on the BlackBerry to The Times who want to know more about our volcanic ash research. Back to my desk to tidy a few things up and decide to Tweet about my day. In particular, asking our followers to tune in to TalkSport later and tweet a top line stat from our volcanic ash research. Follow us on Twitter at @VisitBritainBiz to hear about the news before it happens!

5.30pm: Quick gym session in the basement at work and then a drink in the DFID Pub (oh sorry did I forget to mention we had a subsidised pub downstairs?) 

7.30pm: Drinks with my ex colleagues from the Unite union communications team in Covent Garden, catch up with my old Director and fellow press officers who had some interesting stories to tell about the ongoing dispute with British Airways. Say no more …