Autumn Update

Chester City Centre at Christmas

Now that Halloween and Bonfire Night are over for another year, our stands are festooned with festive leaflets and brochures.

Following a very busy season, we are finally working our way through a long list of jobs to be completed before the New Year, including the installation of new holders in high footfall establishments, preparations for our clients’ forthcoming promotional campaigns and the addition of those all-important final touches to our many plans and projects for 2011.

We were thrilled to learn that Knowsley Safari Park – a long standing client of LDS Tourism Services - won Eden’s inaugural Top Wildlife Attraction of the Year award for 2010. Competing against eight other major British attractions (including the fabulous Blue Planet Aquarium), the popular Merseyside animal park on Lord Derby’s estate took an amazing 41% of the overall votes. Many congratulations to David Ross and his team from all at LDSTS!

It has been quite some time since we last updated you on our Brochure Marketing group, so we are pleased to report that there are currently 723 members on LinkedIn and 752 followers on Twitter - ranging from designers and printers to government officials and tourism chiefs. It is now also possible to join our group on Facebook.

How important are the arts?

Some fascinating statistics were revealed in VisitBritain’s International Passenger Survey questionnaire. Figures showed that among the 30 million inbound visits in 2009, 7.7 million included trips to museums and 4.2 million to art galleries. Britain's major museums and galleries earned the country £1 billion in revenue from overseas tourists last year - the French alone accounting for 960,000 visits. Surely this is an indication that investment in culture and the arts is essential to the UK’s economic recovery.

If this issue concerns you, go along to the I Value the Arts website and pledge your support by signing their petition – there were 15,239 names when I last checked.

Please do let us know your thoughts and predictions with regard to funding for the arts in Britain. Indeed, we would appreciate your opinions on whether or not the Coalition Government is doing enough for the UK tourism industry as a whole. Drop us a line or feel free to post here.

Image: ©Visit Chester & Cheshire, 2010