The British Tourist Authority is placing a lot of its bets on the millennium.

ECONOMIST: Britain is not attracting as many tourists as it should

But the drop was not as bad as the British Tourist Authority had feared, and it believes advertising campaigns in key markets abroad are starting to pay dividends.

BBC: Resorts hope for more sunny times

Among the big company names to be spotted were British Gas, the Scottish division of the British Airports Authority, Tesco, British Telecom, the Scottish Tourist Board, Railtrack, and the Scotch Whisky Association which, surprisingly enough, has until now turned up at all the other parties' conferences but not at the Scottish Nationalists'.

ECONOMIST: Business and nationalism: In from the cold | The