The delights of an early summer seaside break in Great Yarmouth are being featured in a television advert targeting potential tourists in four counties.

Lasting 30 seconds the commercial features a mother and daughter walking on the beach and picnicking in the dunes, enjoying a boat ride and afternoon tea on the Broads, having a flutter at the horse racing, brushing up their painting skills with an art lesson, relaxing in a spa, shopping, and sipping cocktails.

It is part of the ongoing campaign by the Greater Yarmouth Tourism and Business Improvement Area to attract more visitors and spending power to the area to benefit the local economy.

Last year marketing efforts – including television, radio, and national newspaper online sites - were focused on the East Midlands, with adverts seen more than 4.6m times.

This year the focus is on Essex, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.

The tourism group's chairman Gareth Brown said: 'Great Yarmouth continues to be one of the UK's most popular holiday resorts, but we are keen to show there is more to the area than its famous seafront and that it's an ideal location for an early summer break in May and June.'

Mr Brown is also general manager of Haven's Caister Holiday Park and said the company was seeing further increases in early bookings over last year's record season, which was very encouraging.

The advert comes as hotels, guest houses and holiday parks are reporting bookings ahead of this time last year at the resort town and surrounding villages – and tourism chiefs are also buoyed by a raft of major investment, plus a good long range weather forecast.

Nick Mobbs, director at the Imperial Hotel at North Drive on Great Yarmouth's seafront, said: 'Our advance bookings are higher than we would expect at this time of year. We are feeling confident.'

Gary Smith, who owns the five-bedroomed Kilbrannan guest house in Trafalgar Road with wife Julie, reported record early bookings, which were boosted by the amount of things to do – from theatres to the Maritime, Out There and bowls festivals.

The latest set of figures available show that £446m is spent in Yarmouth by tourists.

You can see the new advert at www.great-yarmouth.co.uk/short-break-tv-advert.aspx