I am beginning to wonder just what information the Department for Culture etc, (which as readers will know is where the tourism minister hangs his hat) Visit England and Visit Britain do hold.
Next time, Visit England, forget the politicians who did next to nothing to help and concentrate on publicising tourism benefits to us – the visitors.
There are a number of offers and discounts for us to take advantage of during the week. You can find many more on the English Tourism website but here is just a random selection from up and down England.
Visit England says, “The VisitEngland Awards for Excellence are different to other quality standards as they recognise and celebrate excellence across customer service and the quality of the experience.”
As the great Easter getaway begins this afternoon, many more of us are planning on a break within the UK this year compared to last according to Visit England’s Easter Trip Tracker Survey.
Do we need traditional accommodation grading sytstems in an age when TripAdvisor, Feefo or other online review systems provides scores from those who have stayed rather than those who have just inspected?
Although the purpose of this tranche of cash from the Discover England Fund is to persuade overseas visitors to travel across England rather than stay in London, it will have benefits for us as well.
Visit England has announced the first of the successful applicants to receive year one funding from the £40 million Discover England Fund.
Visit England has announced the winners for the Awards for Excellence 2016. In order to have reached this stage, entrants had to win their local area awards as well
VisitEngland has launched awards to recognise accommodation providers that give the warmest welcome.
At the Visit England Awards for Excellence this year, there were fifteen gold award winners.
Last week after regional heats had whittled down the number of entrants form 400, Visit England handed out its Awards for Excellence.
The first inductees have been made into the hall of fame that was launched by Visit England a little while ago.
As many of you will be aware, Visit England has been setting up a hall of fame and asking you to vote on it. Someone you might have heard of called William Shakespeare has been voted England’s ultimate claim to fame. The nation’s bard has won The People’s Choice in England’s Hall of Fame with 50% more votes than any other claim.
There are just another ten days to go if you want to submit entries for Visit England’s Hall of Fame. And so far there have been some tremendous suggestions so Just about Travel thought it would share some with you. Remember you get the chance to vote on which should actually enter the Hall of Fame when the shortlist opens for voting on April 23rd.
Taking dogs on holiday can be fraught with obstacles. There are some guidebooks that point to dog-friendly accommodation but books rapidly date. Congratulations then to Visit England for adding pages to their main website.
The trend for creating highly visible works of art looks set to continue with today’s public opening of Northumberlandia, ‘Goddess of the North’ – the latest of a number of big and bold public works dotted across the English landscape
Literatours, Sci-Fi Adventures, the Kate effect, Horrible Histories and set-jetting (still!) will be among the key travel trends of 2013, according to the national tourist board, VisitEngland
Research shows over two thirds of Brits not affected at all by £3m advertising campaign
Two days before the start of English Tourism week, Visit England launched a multi- million pound TV campaign. he same day ABTA, Association of British Travel Agents, wrote to the government bemoaning the “lop-sided” support of domestic tourism and that this promotion was a misuse of government money.
It is becoming a little difficult to work out whether we are travelling more or not. And if we are, what it means. You might have heard yesterday that the royal wedding caused a dip in our economic growth in the second quarter of the year. As did the tsunami, the Indian summer, the sale of Olympic tickets and probably the fact that I wore blue socks on the day. I would have thought the royal wedding was good for the economy because it encouraged visitors to come into the country and us to travel about over that four day holiday. But what do I know?
CD-Traveller (25 Sept. 2010) referred to a list of quangos that the government was planning to close, merge or retain. Yesterday the “official” list was published. Going through the list of hundreds affecting the holidaymaker and the traveller, we are not sure that we’ll notice much difference.
There has been a flurry of information released that supposedly tells us what we did during the summer. Did we holiday at home or did we go abroad and does it matter to us as the people who went anyway. The only reason we are interested in this sort of news is because of that self-satisfying feel you get in knowing whether you have done something different or whether you have been where others have gone.
What Have the Tourist Boards Ever Done For Us?
It’s a facetious question of course. They are there to provide us with information and suggestions of where we might holiday. They are a support group who, when we are stranded for ideas or accommodation, ride to the rescue. But they are undergoing change and what we have now may be different in the future. The main regionaltourist authorities such as South West Tourism and Welcome To Yorkshire are funded by the regional development agencies. But this are being wound up by the government. Funding will come from elsewhere but it has led to cutbacks already. South West Tourism will cease to exist as from next April and Cumbria Tourism has faced large cutbacks already.
No this isn’t a salacious tabloid story but David Cameron made a speech on tourism and, as holidaymakers, we are all involved. Or should be. As I wrote a couple of days ago, I can’t remember the last time any Prime Minister paid any more than lip service to it. Yes, there was praise and comment at the appropriate time but hard-core support was limited. Will this time be any different?
Everyone travels, holidays or has a day out so everyone is affected and should be interested. But did the PM ask what we want?
Visit England has announced the results of the business that its members did over the Christmas period and for the whole of 2009. And, it looks like pretty good news for them as many recorded an increase in business over 2008.
44% said that they had more business than previously and 42% said that they had the same level of business meaning that only 14% recorded a drop in business. A drop could mean that it wasn’t due to the overall level of business around but because of new entrants, better marketing or weather or other unforeseen factors (like a long period of roadworks for example) and those hit sales.
Tourism South East, the body responsible for tourism in the south east of England that covers not only the south east but Oxfordshire as well, has been investigating whether the staycation really happened and how big it was. Figures from a number of other sources have shown that overseas holidays were down on 2008 but information on people who holidayed at home (the staycation as it has become known) has been largely hearsay.
Two recent surveys, one by Visit England and the other by the foreign exchange bureaux company, First Rate both claim to be able to reveal what visitors to our shores want to see. Unfortunately the two say different things. the findings from Visit England are based on visitor entry numbers and since places like Trafalgar Square and Tower Bridge are free to walk around (unless you want to go into Tower Bridge), visits aren’t counted.
