LONDON, March 4 (UPI) -- Tourism officials have begun a campaign to convince potential visitors to the royal wedding and the Olympics that it doesn't rain all the time in Britain.
Prince William's marriage to Kate Middleton, scheduled for April, Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee next year and, of course, the London Olympics in 2012, are expected to draw millions of visitors. Tourism Minister John Penrose has released plans to put out the welcome mat in all kinds of ways, The Guardian reported Friday.
They include trying to make lines at passport control shorter, improving signs for historical sites and buildings and adding translations in languages like Japanese in some areas.
The report includes a section, Making the Industry More Resilient to Bad Weather.
"Our weather is substantially better than many people think. For example Rome has more rain than London, Sydney has more than Leeds, and 'foggy London town' is less so than San Francisco," it says. "Revealingly, other countries are already addressing this issue; for example the Scandinavians believe that 'there's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes.'"
Penrose said one idea has been abandoned -- adding an additional hour of daylight saving time. He said the danger to children on dark mornings outweighed any advantage to lighter evenings.
