Meet Dame Judi Dench, the face of Britain Inc.

She arguably ranks alongside Stonehenge, St Paul's Cathedral and the Scottish Highlands as one of Britain's best-loved national treasures. And now Dame Judi Dench is to use her global appeal to sell the other virtues of Great Britain in an advertising campaign aimed at attracting millions more tourists from overseas. The Shakespearean actor and James Bond stalwart will be joined by the Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel in the "You're Invited" global TV drive the first for a decade by the tourism agency VisitBritain. The £100m marketing drive will seek to capitalise on the global interest in the royal wedding and the huge attention and vast TV audiences which the London Olympics and Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012 are expected to attract. Officials hope to cash in on the spotlight falling on Britain to draw in an additional four million visitors spending around £2bn, targeting in particular the lucrative and expanding Asian and Latin American markets. The M&C Saatchi advertising agency has worked on the "You're Invited" campaign since January, which the VisitBritain marketing director, Laurence Bresh, said "underlines the scale of our ambition to produce the best tourism marketing campaign that has ever been mounted by a host nation around an Olympic Games". It is hoped that renewed interest in the Royal Family could pay real dividends. The wedding of William and Kate last month was reported to have been seen by a global audience of two billion, and the newlyweds will travel to Canada later this month and California in July on their debut tour, which will promote Britain overseas. Research suggests two-thirds of visitors to Britain will seek out places with royal connections. Tours of castles and stately homes are also among the top three activities for inbound tourists. Dame Judi will cement the royal connection, having played Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love and Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown. Her personal video will highlight Britain's heritage, while Patel's will pitch to a younger, Asian market. Both will seek to capitalise on the "potent" film tourism market, with industry leaders claiming that 40 per cent of visitors want to go to locations they've seen on the big screen. William and Kate's US trip will also include a major event promoting the British film industry through Bafta. The campaign is being funded by a major new government partnership with the tourism industry, with ministers promising £50m, which is being matched by airlines, tour operators, theme parks and hotel chains determined to woo new visitors. It follows a 34 per cent cut to VisitBritain's budget in George Osborne's spending review last autumn. Firms already pledging support include American Express, British Airways, Raddison hotels, P&O Ferries, Lastminute.com, easyJet and Emirates airlines. A deal has also been struck with the All England Lawn Tennis Club to use the Wimbledon championships, which start this week, to "showcase Britain globally" and increase the £2.3bn already spent by sports tourists in Britain every year. Sandie Dawe, chief executive of VisitBritain, said: "Wimbledon is one of the world's top global sports events and yet another fantastic partner offering us a platform to showcase Britain globally." Around six celebrity videos are expected to be launched in total in the first stage of the four-year promotion. There will be a major push on 27 July, which marks a year before the start of the London Olympics. As well as trying to appeal to new markets, officials are anxious to reverse the decline in visitor numbers from countries that used to send people flocking to Britain. For example, last year 2.7 million American travellers came to the UK, down from more than four million a decade earlier. The US remains by far the most valuable inbound market, however, with visitors spending £2.1bn in 2010. From / The Independent