NEWSLETTER

Shropshire businesses have again been winning awards and reinforcing the high quality of establishments in the county. Congratulations to Shaun Hill at the Merchant House, voted 14th best restaurant in the world. And as if that wasn’t enough of a world stage to play on, Hawkstone Park Hotel score a hole in one, being voted the 18th best Golfing Holiday in the world!

The World Heritage Site of Ironbridge, and Hawkstone Historic Park and Follies are also recent award winners. The Good Britain Guide 2003 voted Ironbridge Gorge Museum the National Family Attraction of the Year, while Hawkstone Historic Park and Follies was voted Adventure of the Year. Congratulations!

Congratulations also to Oxon Hall in Shrewsbury for recently winning a Silver Award at Safeway Excellence in England Awards for Tourism 2003. The awards ceremony is considered the Tourism Industry’s equivalent to the Oscars!

The award was presented to director of Morris Leisure, Edward Goddard by broadcaster Sue Lawley at a prestigious ceremony in London. Edward said “This award is a great tribute to the dedication and commitment of our management and staff. The park, now in its fifth year has built its reputation on recommendation and it is so fulfilling to see visitors return year on year”.

If you have recently won any awards, we want to hear from you. We are always on the look out for award winners to feature in our brochure, on the website and use on press visits when journalists visit the county.

During recent perception research, undertaken for Shropshire Tourism and Herefordshire and Worcestershire, Shropshire scored high results in terms of recognition of the county. When compared to other visitor guides, 8 out of 10 groups gave the Shropshire Brochure an average rating of 7.8. This is a very high score and puts our brochure up there with the best in the country! People questioned said they preferred the Shropshire brochure because of its “professional, clean and modern style”.

Our use of photography and balance between copy and advertisements impresses the reader and quality and presentation of the publication is also one of our strong points. So with that in mind, don’t delay – book your advert in the 2004 brochure as soon as possible.

A new Regional Centre for Tourism Business Support has been set up at Business Link in Telford. It provides a single point of contact through which you can find the business information, specialist business advice and training you need to develop your business.

The new Tourism Business Adviser for Shropshire is Lesley Davies. Lesley has many years experience in the tourism industry in both the public and private sectors, including 10 years as Principal Tourism Officer at Shropshire County Council. For the past five years Lesley has been a tourism consultant working throughout the West Midlands during which her work included co-ordination of the Foot and Mouth Disease Recovery Tourism Marketing Programme and setting up the Food and Drink in Tourism Project for the regional tourist board.

The Centre provides free proactive business support through a team of tourism business advisers who will help you identify the areas where you would benefit from specialist advice and training. The staff can offer advice and find training on subjects such as marketing, research, IT, responsibilities under the Disability Discrimination Act, staff development, financial planning, quality assurance standards etc. The Centre also has an Information Resource Centre with a database of all relevant sources of business information for tourism and leisure businesses.

You can contact Lesley for a free tourism advisory visit on 07871 917646, or through the Information Resource Centre on 0845 241 8269. Alternatively, see the enclosed leaflet.

There have been significant changes to the Shropshire Tourism website over the past few months. Since the appointment of Ben Emanuelli in the autumn, the number of visitors to www.shropshiretourism.co.uk has increased to an average of 25,000 a month and is generating over 30 brochure requests for the Shropshire brochure per day.

Ben has been working on setting up individual websites within the Shropshire Tourism website. These new websites come free as part of the Shropshire Tourism membership package and allow all our members to have their own personalised website address. So if you are a member and haven’t yet sent in your website booking form – send it in as soon as possible. Just think you are missing out on a potential 25,000 pair of eyes looking at your business!

The site has also been directly linked to the new information kiosk set up by Richard Vickery at the new M54 service station. There are also plans in the pipeline to set-up other kiosks in various locations throughout the county.

As a member of Shropshire Tourism we can advertise any Special Offers you have on the website. So if you have a last minute cancellation or want to offer a special midweek price, please let Ben Emanuelli know and he’ll put it on to the website for you. You can contact him on support@shropshiretourism.co.uk

We have recently negotiated a discount scheme for Shropshire Tourism members with NRG Direct Mail in Wem. NRG specialises in small print runs on letterhead paper, business cards, direct mail and leaflet printing.

If you would like to take advantage of this offer or want to talk to someone about your requirements, please contact Nick Chavasse at NRG on 01939 235535, or email info@nrgdirectmail.co.uk.

Everyone in the industry is aware of the Disability Discrimination Act 2004. Shropshire Tourism is currently in the process of putting together a short guide for tourism businesses in Shropshire to give suggestions about how the Act will affect you and how you can make practical and affordable changes to your business to accommodate visitors with disabilities.

Members of Shropshire Tourism will automatically receive this publication as soon as it becomes available.

Sarah Whittall has been very busy organising visits for journalists coming to the county. Shropshire Tourism has hosted a total of 12 visits this year alone. The total value of press coverage generated over the past 12 months exceeds £3million. Recently, Shropshire has had visits from a journalist from De Telegraaf, which is Holland’s biggest national newspaper and a travel editor from the Sunday Times who visited the county to write a feature on ‘Restaurants with rooms’. Bella magazine recently visited to do research for two pieces – the Hidden Highway and a feature on Combermere Cottages in north Shropshire.

In June alone, we hosted three separate press trips. Residence magazine is a monthly Dutch publication who will be doing a piece on English Tea and Tearooms. Brian Howse is a regular visitor to Shropshire. Last year he produced 5 separate articles for Best of British magazine and in June he visited the Severn Valley Railway during its 1940’s weekend.

If you have any ideas for Press Trips please contact Sarah Whittall at the Shropshire Tourism office.

All members of Shropshire Tourism should now have received copies of the new Shropshire Places to Visit booklet. This year the decision was made, after consultation with our members, to merge the Places to Visit Map with the Bedroom Browser.

The result was the new A5 publication which has been well supported by local attractions and well received by our members. All member accommodation have received 4 copies per bedroom or self catering unit and all other members have received copies depending on their location and type of business.

If you would like to order more copies of the Places to Visit booklet, please email Helen Edwards on hedwards@shropshiretourism.co.uk or use your order form to fax through your order on 01743 462035.

This year we introduced the Visitor Pass Scheme. Did you use your visitor pass? Did you have many visitors to your attraction who presented the pass to you? We need your feedback to assess how well the scheme has been received and to make any improvements to it. We hope this will be a long standing future member benefit and we want it to benefit you as much as possible.

If you have any comments or suggestions how the scheme is working or how it can be improved, please contact Helen Smith.

Walford and North Shropshire College are in the process of securing funding for an extension to their “Tourism in Shropshire” project.

The new project will again offer fantastic value for money by offering low cost training (for under £10 per course) to tourism related businesses. The success of last years project was to be able to offer training specifically tailored to your business needs. This training can be on a one-to-one, group or classroom level and will now cover the West Midland region.

If you would like to register your interest in this initiative, or would like more information please contact: Caroline Morris (Project Officer) on 01939 262157, or email her on a.c.morris@wnsc.ac.uk. You can also visit website: www.tourisminshropshire.com

With many graduates leaving college with little or no experience of the industry they have studied, they enter the working world in a vicious circle. They are unable to get a job until they have ‘relevant experience’ can’t get relevant experience until they have a relevant job.

With this in mind, the Shropshire Education Business Partnership is setting up a number of initiatives focused at young people to help promote the Leisure and Tourism industry as a career avenue. The Shropshire EBP is part of the Connexions career service and is focussed on facilitating a productive relationship between education and business and preparing young people for working life.

In order to promote the Leisure and Tourism industry to students a number of initiatives are being set up with the help of those already involved in the industry. These initiatives include Careers Roadshows, Industry Days and Work Tasters.

If you would like further details about the proposed initiatives, or feel you would like to contribute to any of the above, please contact Adrian Richards from the Shropshire Education Business Partnership on 01952 681016, or email him on a.richards.ebp@connexionsstw.org.uk

The Shropshire Tourism office at Harlescott Barns is becoming a very busy place with the appointment of a new Tourism Assistant – Jodie Stephen. Jodie joined the team on 23rd June to assist in the many marketing activities taking place.

Chief Executive Simon McCloy has been with the organisation over 12 months and is already making exciting new plans with the compilation of a 3 year business plan for the company. Catherine, Sarah, Helen and Ben continue to enjoy working at the Barns and we look forward to a successful 2003 season.