Let Battle Commence

Cheshire Farm Ice Creams

The two-week Easter break was more hectic than even we had anticipated and our headquarters began to resemble Churchill’s war rooms at the height of WWII.

The sheer logistics involved in ensuring all areas and major establishments are supplied with the correct leaflets both before and during the school holidays can be daunting - especially when so many outlets don‘t open for business until the very last moment - but Team LDSTS pulled it off once again, winning untold battles.

Fun on the farm

Diana and I were able to take some time out over the weekend before Easter to visit Cheshire Farm Ice Cream in Tattenhall. We simply couldn’t resist the lure of those Malt Tease and Honeycomb flavours in giant double-cones - but with our 14-year-old niece in tow, we had the perfect excuse to indulge.

There have been numerous improvements made since we first began distributing the attraction’s leaflets many years ago. Tom and Margaret Fell have invested a great deal in old Drumlan Hall Farm and it now attracts over 250,000 visitors a year and supplies Real Dairy Ice Cream to restaurants and retail outlets throughout the region.

There are plenty of activities to keep young people entertained, such as Crazy Daisy’s Play Barn and Animal Corner - where we were delighted to meet baby guinea pigs, Buff Orpington chickens and numerous fluffy and feathered critters - before purchasing our ice creams. We also ambled through the gift shops, visited a milking area, scratched the bellies of three young kune kune pigs and stood on a platform to watch some thirty or so adorable, long-lashed calves being fed. A thoroughly enjoyable experience!

In print and on page

We would like to thank Wayne Lowe, a presenter at Radio Clatterbridge, for publishing an article about LDS Tourism Services in his blog, Rain Glow, on 30th March. He tells me that he’s hoping to do something about us on his radio show at some point in the future, so we’ll let you know if and when that happens.

If you happen to pick up a copy of The Mersey Partnership’s new publication, Developing The Economy Of The Liverpool City Region, you will find us listed on page 32. It contains some fascinating articles about the Visitor Economy, Investment and Liverpool SuperPort, among others - so it’s well worth borrowing a copy if you’re not a member.

We are also extremely grateful to those of you who contacted us following our previous post about becoming a Guest Blogger for Swift Flyer. We have plans to run a number of the most interesting pieces over the coming weeks, but in the meantime, please keep sending your submissions in the main body of an email  (I’m afraid we can’t accept attachments) or by hard copy to LDS Tourism Services Ltd., Border Distribution Centre, River Lane, Saltney, Chester CH4 8RH.

We look forward to receiving your suggestions, photos and articles.


Image: Cheshire Farm Ice Cream, © LDS Tourism Services Ltd, 2010

Visit Chester and Cheshire Members' Workshop

LDS Tourism Services were recently invited to attend Visit Chester and Cheshire's' Workshop on 11th April 2008. Diana and I attended the workshop at the De Vere Carden Park Hotel in Cheshire. These events are very kindly organised by VCC to encourage networking between members. It gives everyone a chance to catch up with the latest news and ideas and put ideas forward.

In the first session, our presentation was 'Marketing and Planning for Your Business' by Tracy Archer. This was a very interesting talk about simple ways to market you own business, with a particular focus on website and e-mail marketing. Although it was mainly aimed at hoteliers and attractions, I found that many points were relevant to us too. We are always keen to keep our website and e-mails up to date with the latest technology, so I found it useful.

After a short break for a cup of tea, we returned to the conference room to see a presentation on 'Victor-e' by Martyn Collins. This focused on a fantastic new online development the tourist board are piloting in Tatton. The idea is to group together clusters of businesses associated with the tourist industry and create an online i-visitor guide for each of them to feature on their website. This way, there would be one point of reference for web users to look up Tatton. Although this may not be something LDS can get involved in directly, anything that boosts tourism in the area is beneficial for all.

I was particularly looking forward to our final session and it did not disappoint. 'Practical Green Solutions - what can you do tomorrow' by Manda Brookman from CoaST was a truely dynamic presentation which enabled all of us to see what a difference we can make to the environment and our business by making small changes. I certainly went away with a few ideas of things we can do at LDS to make us more eco-friendly. It's something we have always been interested in and Paula likes to encourage wildlife by erecting bat boxes on our office building. It was great to see other people become enthusiastic about green issues and also realise that it creates a good image for ones business.

After all the presentations were over we had a lovely lunch and were given the opportunity to talk to others sitting at our table. All in all, I found the day extremely useful. Although we are not hoteliers or owners of an attraction, we are connected to the tourism industry and very much want to improve visitor numbers to our region. It's also important that different types of businesses can work together in order to keep British Tourism and local business thriving.

Winners of Northwest Tourism ‘Oscars’

England’s fourth Northwest Tourism Awards took place on 10th October at Manchester Central.

The cream of the region’s tourism industry gathered for this high profile event, which was organised by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and hosted by BBC North West Tonight presenter Ranvir Singh.

The winners each walked away with a gleaming trophy, crafted by The World of Glass, to mark their achievement and the coveted title of best in the Northwest for 2007.

We are delighted to report that among the recipients of accolades handed out on the night were Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, who claimed the Excellence in Customer Service award, and Cotebrook Shire Horse Centre, Cheshire, who received a Judges Commendation in the Small Visitor Attraction of the Year category . Our conratulations go to both these excellent attractions.

Regional winners will now have the opportunity to represent the Northwest in the national Enjoy England Awards for Excellence, organised by VisitBritain, which will be held in April 2008.

City Breaks in Britain

New research released last week by VisitBritain, the national tourism agency, suggests that Brits are embracing the buzz around city break destinations.

The report makes interesting reading. Apparently, the most visited English cities are London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool and York - which is great news for the North West.

It would seem that eight out of the top ten most visited destinations in England are cities. The number of overnight visits made to the eight cities in 2006 was more than 22.8 million, indicating that city breaks on our own doorstep are of huge appeal to domestic tourists. To capitalise on and further encourage this popularity, the Enjoy England team at VisitBritain have launched a new campaign to inspire Brits to visit city break destinations. City Breaks offers Britons a wealth of reasons to visit 36 cities the length and breadth of England via their dedicated website.

Information on the website is broken down into 9 handy categories, each containing relevant city holiday ideas. These range from ‘Arts and Culture’, ‘Food’ and ‘Shopping’ through to ‘Music’, ‘Romance’ and ‘Fun with Friends’ – aiming to enthuse and inspire with lots of great ideas. The campaign has already been complimented by a 52 page Guardian supplement on 29th September, showcasing the cities involved in the campaign and driving people to the City Breaks website.

The campaign follows the successful City Culture campaigns run in the past two years, where 97% of website visitors said they had been encouraged to visit different parts of England than they had previously considered. This is a breakdown of the results:

1. London - 10,959,000
2. Manchester - 2,490,000
3. Birmingham - 2,287,000
4. Bristol - 1,825,000
5. Blackpool - 1,787,000
6. Leeds - 1,436,000
7. Scarborough - 1,383,000
8. Newcastle upon Tyne - 1,298,000
9. Liverpool - 1,257,000
10. York - 1,247,000

Incidentally, you can find our home city of Chester on their list, too!

Visitor Statistics

It's interesting to note that VisitBritain's latest survey of England’s visitor attractions has revealed that despite a wetter year than 2005, with August sunshine levels 11% below average, visitors made 196.5 million visits to attractions in 2006 - a +3% increase compared to the previous year.

In the North West, the average admission to attractions is currently £5.88 with urban attractions doing particularly well (+10%) in 2006, compared to coastal and rural attractions which were both down (-4%).

While Windermere Lake Cruises and Chester Zoo continue to hold first and second position, Tatton Park is the third most popular paid attraction in the region. Blackpool Pleasure Beach remains the region’s – and England’s – leading free attraction and The Lowry pushes Tate Liverpool back one place to third.

Proving the reason it was selected as 2008 European Capital of Culture, visitors to the Liverpool area are well served by free attractions – half of the region’s ten most popular attractions are in Merseyside.

Apparently, Chester Zoo was number 8 in the top ten most visited paid attractions in England as a whole.

One wonders what effect the wet weather will have on the statistics for 2007!