NEWSLETTER

As if we didn’t offer you enough member benefits already, here is a new one for 2006/07, that we are sure will be most welcome!

As a Shropshire Tourism member you are now eligible for a 15% discount off your VisitBritain inspection. Valid until March 2007, you need to claim for the discount on application to Quality in Tourism (who carry out the inspections on behalf of VisitBritain). The discount is only available on application and cannot be claimed retrospectively.

All you need to do to claim your discount is provide Quality in Tourism with proof of membership of Shropshire Tourism, this could be a copy of your current Shropshire Tourism membership certificate.

We know how pricey inspections can be, so we hope this new member benefit will ease the cost slightly for you.

If you would like some more information on the discount please contact Quality in Tourism on 0845 300 6996. You can also call us here at the Barns anytime with any queries you may have.

Shropshire Tourism is advising its members to get netted. The internet is a massive marketing avenue available to tourism businesses, but are you making the most of it?

“The growth of the Internet as a marketing tool to visitors means every tourism business should have a distinctive, branded and well designed website. With this in mind, at Shropshire Tourism we are advising all our members to get netted as quickly as possible.” Ben Emanuelli – Shropshire Tourism

As many of you may know, Shropshire Tourism has designed a number of websites for our members and at £450 for the design and only £145 for the annual hosting, it is more affordable than you may think.

We have also designed websites for some of Shropshire’s tourism associations and our other partner organisations such as; Shropshire County Hotels, Shropshire’s Star Attractions and most recently we have designed the North Shropshire Cycle Routes website on behalf of North Shropshire District Council.

Other exciting web based niche marketing projects are a series of Walking, Riding and Cycling websites for Shropshire County Council. These websites will be linked back to the central Englandnet database and will be ideal for those seeking places to hike, trek, or pedal their way through Shropshire.

There are also two new websites in development specifically targeting the travel trade sector. One will specifically focus on Shrewsbury and the other one will be the main group site for the rest of Shropshire.

Many of these websites have come about because of the close working relationship between Shropshire Tourism and our partner organisations.

Please look at our members website, www.stmem.com for more details. You can click ‘website clients’ to view live examples and testimonials and feel free to contact us at the Barns if you are interested in having your own website.

South Shropshire is currently awash with runners (and they're not the athletic kind!), photographers and directors as Shropshire has been chosen as the location for the filming of the new £36 million, star studded film ‘Atonement’. Filming is taking place throughout July at Stokesay Court near Onibury.

Keira Knightley will play the lead role in the movie which has been adapted from Ian McEwan’s critically acclaimed, best selling novel Atonement. Other stars due to line-up alongside Knightley include the award winning actresses of Brenda Blethyn and Vanessa Redgrave, the rising star James McAvoy (Mr Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia) and Romola Garai.

Atonement is being produced by the British film production company Working Title Films who have produced a number of blockbusters including Notting Hill, Billy Elliott, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones.

Much of our South Shropshire self catering members have been booked up for months to accommodate members of the film crew and auditions have taken place in search for local people to become local film stars.

The filming of Atonement in Shropshire is a big boost for the county and is not only significantly contributing to the local economy but will also bring heightened promotion of Shropshire and its diversity as a filming location.

With such a star studded cast, who knows, we could soon see Keira Knightley praising Shropshire as she hot foots it down the red carpet …

Yes it’s that time of year again– advertising in next year's Shropshire & Welsh Borders brochure, soon comes round doesn’t it?!

The team here at the Barns have been busy preparing booking forms and mailing lists. We are continually trying to improve our systems for data collection to ensure your information is up to date, so this year you will receive a booking form already showing some of your details. This has been taken from the EnglandNet database which is running the website. You will have the opportunity to change the information on your booking form.

With the brochure consistently showing a conversion rate to business of over 36% how can you afford to miss out on this key marketing tool for attracting visitors to our fair county?

Here are some of the comments made by those very visitors about the brochure, taken from our visitor surveys:

‘Excellent and informative’ ‘Gave a very good overview’

‘Very useful and well produced’ ‘Gives you all the information you could possibly require’

‘Sharp pictures, wide range of up to date information, colourful and makes you want to visit!’

‘Very accurate, we wanted to visit Shropshire having read the brochure’

‘I’m really excited about my visit to your county this weekend and really looking forward to visiting all the stunning places in the brochure’

So, don’t take our word for it, this is what some of our advertisers say:

South Shropshire hotel:

‘The volume of business we receive due to the Shropshire & Welsh Borders brochure is still the most effective paper advert we have.’

Shropshire self catering business:

‘The cottage was booked up last year, our advert in the Shropshire & Welsh Borders brochure helped enormously’

Specialist shop in Shropshire

‘The Shropshire & Welsh Borders brochure works really well for us’

B&B in the Oswestry area

‘The brochure always works well’

If you are interested in advertising in the Shropshire & Welsh Borders AD 2007 and have not received a booking form, please contact Jodie Stephen on 01743 452288

EnglandNet, EnglandNet. You have hopefully heard us banging on about EnglandNet for the past few months now and the only way to keep us quiet on the subject is to return your EnglandNet form to us (which you should have done over the past few weeks). If not - please send it back to us as it’s a vital tool for promoting your business on the Shropshire Tourism website, the Heart of England website and the national VisitBritain website.

According to EnjoyEngland, over 50% of consumers now use the internet to decide on a destination for their holidays. The Shropshire Tourism website alone is now receiving 145,000 unique visits per month, so don’t miss out on this opportunity to sell your business to all those potential visitors to Shropshire.

Shropshire Tourism has invested in the EnglandNet system for good reason – it makes your life easier! From now on you need only supply details of your business to us once and we can upload your details to the local, regional and national integrated websites.

Shropshire Tourism is the county’s only EnglandNet provider and has the responsibility for the county’s accommodation and attraction records. It is a member benefit for you to be able to update your information (up to 1,000 words and 5 images) on a regular basis – non-members can only update their 25 word record on an annual basis.

The EnglandNet system allows you to reach far larger visitor markets and allows you to display accurate information about your business at all times. Your information will in the future also provide information for the production of many of the brochures and visitor guides you may advertise in.

As well as providing information for the local, regional and national websites, the information is also displayed on the Shrewsbury, North Shropshire, Bridgnorth and South Shropshire websites – providing you are also a member of these organisations. How much easier does that make things?!

So if you haven’t already returned your form, please do so. Although members can update their information at any time during the year, this is the only time these forms will be mailed out. With almost 500 members to look after, it would be very helpful if you could take a regular look at your web entry on the Shropshire Tourism website, to ensure your information is correct. We can update your entry for you on request, so please do take advantage of this and make the most of your main member benefit!

Englandnet data entry forms are available to download on the members website www.stmem.com/englandnet.htm

The Shropshire Tourism Members website is designed especially for you! Packed with tourism related information, it contains a mix of up to date news, offers and opportunities, business advice and support which we hope you will find both useful and interesting.

If you haven’t already taken a look at the site, log on to www.stmem.com or go to www.shropshiretourism.co.uk and click on the ‘Member Website’ button.

Shropshire’s reputation as a press and pr paradise continues with a number of journalists flooding in to the county.

Journalists from Canada, Italy, Belgium, New Zealand and the US have all recently visited to sample the delights of Shropshire with themes ranging from the ever popular King Arthur to gardens and general travel features.

Shropshire Tourism has assisted in getting coverage on Shropshire in the Daily Telegraph, Woman’s Own, BBC Homes and Antiques and Best of British Magazine. The Lonely Planet Guide and the National Geographic Magazine are just some of the other publications which are also due to feature Shropshire.

Filming in Shropshire is becoming something of a regular occurrence, in the last six months BBC Scotland have filmed in Telford, Bridgnorth and Shrewsbury for a documentary on Thomas Telford. BBC Two were filming in North Shropshire for the ‘Hands on Nature’ programme, Granada TV filmed South Shropshire for a drama and a Canadian production company were busy filming for a programme entitled ‘Legend Hunters’.

If you have an interesting story you would like to share with us, please contact Sarah Whittall on 01743 462462

You may be aware that Shropshire Tourism has been fortunate over the past 10 years in receiving grant funding from the European Regional Development Fund and DEFRA through the England Rural Development Programme, as well as other bodies.

These funds are due to run out at the end of the year, with no opportunity to renew. Although we will endeavor to keep the increase in membership and advertising fees to a minimum, the loss of funding will inevitably mean future prices will increase.

Please remember that as a not for profit company limited by guarantee, we do not have to pay shareholders dividends. Therefore all money put into the company goes back into the promotion of Shropshire, to help bring more visitors to the county.

If you have any questions about funding, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Quality at Heart is an ideal new scheme for organisations looking to stand out from the crowd and offer the best possible visitor experience. Led by the Regional Centre for Tourism Business Support, it is dedicated to providing specialist support to businesses to enable them to develop and achieve recognition.

The Quality at Heart process takes clients on a business improvement journey and then recognises excellence in four key areas: firstly standards (the minimum entry level) and then upon satisfactory completion of this stage, clients may move on to making improvements and attempting recognition in one or more of the following themes: customer service; business practices; and people development. Businesses achieving the necessary standard in these areas are awarded recognition according to Quality at Heart’s three marks:

• Servicemark
• Businessmark
• Peoplemark

Organisations pay a modest commitment fee to enter onto the Model and this also includes three attempts at recognition before the Independent Panel. A member of the Quality at Heart Team is always on hand to give support and advice and once achieved, recognition will prove a valuable marketing tool.

If you would like to know more about Quality at Heart, please contact Simon Smith, Quality at Heart Executive on 07711 073492, or visit www.qualityatheart.co.uk

Have you ever wondered how to undertake research on your business? Would you like to know what your visitors actually think about their stay with you but not sure how to ask? Do you want to monitor your advertising spend more effectively but not sure how to go about it? If you have answered Yes to any of these questions then you need to speak to the Shropshire Tourism Research Unit (STRU).

Shropshire is the only county in the country to benefit from its own publicly funded unit conducting research on behalf of the tourism industry. In operation since March 2004, Shropshire Tourism Research Unit (STRU) has already improved the availability of tourism statistics for Shropshire, and has worked with over 50 tourism business in the county on their own individual research projects.

Originally intended as a two year venture, additional funding has now been secured from the European Union (Objective 2 funding) and Shropshire County Council to extend STRU’s life until June 2008. Emma Smith, Tourism Research Officer for STRU said:

“I am delighted we have obtained this funding. It means that local tourism businesses will continue to benefit from the unit’s tourism research expertise and that future tourism product development, marketing campaigns and investment decisions can be based on statistically robust tourism data.”

As well as a wealth of generic information that may help with your business planning, STRU can also offer one-to-one FREE support to Shropshire’s tourism businesses. The research team can provide as much as 5 days research support to any tourism business within the Shropshire Objective 2 area. Whatever your research needs, STRU will be able to help by offering:

• Questionnaire design, data analysis and interpretation
• Customer satisfaction and visitor profile surveys
• Marketing/advertising campaign evaluation
• Provision of relevant statistics and information to support business planning
• Investigation of niche markets
• Festivals and events impact assessment
• Researching specialist areas of interest

For further information on how your business can benefit from STRU’s five day free research consultancy service, please contact Emma Smith on 01743 252598 or Email: emma.smith@shropshire-cc.gov.uk

Shropshire Tourism - Harlescott Barns - Harlescott - Shrewsbury - Shropshire - SY1 3SZ

Tel: 01743 462462 Fax:01743 462035