Marketing with spring in your step

I’ve been cheered to see snowdrops in bloom at last, and the clouds clearing after what seems like weeks of  grey skies, with the English countryside muddy underfoot and temperatures hovering around freezing. Yet it’s one of the best times for wrapping up well and enjoying the great outdoors, taking a bracing country walk, perhaps with a dog in tow, followed by a hearty pub lunch and a warm up by a roaring log fire. Find some inspiration here. It’s also a great time to take a city break, and enjoy live theatre, nightlife or a little retail therapy,  which can all be enjoyed indoors, should you be unlucky enough to encounter rain or snow in city streets.

Symptoms of recovery?

I escaped the rain myself for a packed performance of The Misanthrope at London’s Comedy Theatre last night, with brilliant entertainment from a star studded cast that included Keira Knightley, Damien Lewis, Tara Fitzgerald and Nicholas Le Prevost. I was reminded of  Sir Cameron Macintosh, in a recent radio interview,  revealing that his theatres have also been among the beneficaries of a healthy growth in West End ticket sales over the past year, in spite of the recession.

Elsewhere I’ve read recently, amongst other things, that the last year was a record vintage for English wine, thanks in part to 2009′s glorious September weather; and that Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire enjoyed a 43% increase in visitor numbers compared to 2008. Britain’s leading visitor attractions, represented by Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) saw an average 10.9% increase in visitor numbers in 2009, and reported this week that 82% of their members were optimistic about the immediate future compared to 60% this time last year.

Have you seen the recent campaign for Premier Inns, one of the Whitbread Group brands, fronted by the actor Lenny Henry? The Times recently reported that this had already generated 215,000 room nights over a 6 month period, for a £29 non refundable room rate, booked a minimum of 21 days in advance of arrival.

So what can we learn from these successes? For all of us involved in the British visitor economy, it’s vital to stay positive whatever the season; and look out for thc business opportunities and silver lining that exists inside every cloud.  Success seems to breed more success, just follow the links to some of the above websites,  they also seem to exude a certain successful ‘look and feel’.  It’s certainly important to visitors that we keep smiling, both online and in person, so they always feel welcome – whatever the weather!

New consumer marketing campaign from Visit Britain

If you’re a regular visitor to VisitBritain.org our national tourism agency’s trade website, you’ll already know that they’ve been keeping very busy in the last month. Amongst other initiatives they’ve launched a highly anticipated new campaign for cities which focuses on Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle-Gateshead and Oxford in association with EasyJet and British Airways . See how these cities are being promoted to the overseas visitor.

Reap benefits from Visit Britain’s new strategy

Visit Britain has also launched a new global Britain and London 2012 marketing strategy. It makes interesting reading.

When you run a business involved in the visitor economy, it’s always going to be sensible to keep tabs on how the country as a whole, the local region, and your immediate vicinity are being marketed to visitors. If it’s feasible to  mirror the activity of major agencies and destination management organisations at an individual business level, you can potentially benefit from the glow of awareness that’s already being created in the wider arena, and perhaps even get yourself featured in some high profile promotional campaigns. That can do wonders for raising your profile in a crowded marketplace. Let’s not be shy! Anyone who identifies an opportunity that’s right for them should go for it. It’s usually a simple matter to read the strategies and identify where there’s common ground and partnering potential.

Why not also volunteer your organisation to host visiting journalists or representatives of the travel trade from overseas, on an organised familiarisation trip? This is something which has the potential to lead to valuable media coverage. You just need to get proactive, and either pick up the phone,  or fire off an email to your local tourism officer, or relevant contact found via the ‘contact us’ section of the national or regional tourist board websites, expressing your wish to get involved. For my part, I wish you good luck!

Do you think there are grounds for optimism in the visitor economy of 2010? Let me know what you think.

Until next time…

World Heritage: surprising stories behind tourist icons

They’re found all over the world, from the Eiffel Tower in Paris, to the Leaning Tower of Pisa; from the Sydney Opera House, to the Statue of Liberty in New York,  the Pyramids of Cairo and the Taj Mahal of India.

These wonders are icons of international tourism, and many are recognised by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. You can picture them in your mind’s eye, and most people can even draw a recognisable approximation of them on a blank sheet of paper. They don’t need a caption.

We currently have 28 World Heritage sites in Britain, find out more. They include Stonehenge and Avebury, the entire city of Bath; and churches, abbeys and cathedrals in wonderful places like Durham, Canterbury and Fountains Abbey. Hadrian’s Wall snakes across the border country between England and Scotland, while in the London area you can find Westminster Abbey, Kew Gardens, The Tower of London and Greenwich, and in Dorset, the geological wonders of the Jurassic Coast.

We may think we know all these places – at a glance – and yet, we don’t.  They may be on the list of ‘1000 places to see before we die‘; but the truth of the matter is that we often take them for granted.

Everywhere I go in the world, if I’m prepared to take the time, there are layers of history that can be unpeeled, and without fail, I find fascinating stories await whenever I take the trouble to look mindfully and learn, from even the most familiar of ‘sights’.

It’s easy to adopt the ‘been there, done that’ attitude when ‘sightseeing’, irrespective of whether you’re close to home, or far from it. One general  observation that I’d make, is that you can often make it easier for yourself if you book a professionally guided tour, since a knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide can make the whole learning process much easier and more pleasurable, than if you have to swot up from a guidebook.

It’s easy to take for granted the places which are closest, because we think we’re already familiar with them. By way of illustration,  I’d like to share  some information about La Giralda, the celebrated cathedral bell tower in Seville, pictured above, because, as part of a World Heritage site, an architectural masterpiece in its own right, and as a tourist icon of Andalucia and Spain, it’s already a familiar image. However lovely it is to look at, it’s my theory that not so many people actually know much in the way of stories or information about it, unless they’ve actually visited the Andalucian city.

When we travel to an exotic foreign location we’re somehow more likely to be motivated to learn about  the history and significance of major sights, since there’s always a possibility we might never have another opportunity to return. That’s not the case with places closer to home; although the results of research can be just as fascinating, and our efforts just as much appreciated by the visitors we share them with.  So, given that we have such a truly awesome wealth of history on our doorstep here in Britain if we trouble to discover it, let’s make more of an effort to change things.

Meanwhile, by way of illustration, let’s return to my discoveries about the most famous and beautiful belltower in  Seville…

Revealing facts

The name ‘La Giralda’ means ‘the one who turns’ in Spanish, and it actually refers to the figure that spins round atop the cathedral tower.  If you look closely at the close up of the belltower at the introduction to this post, you can make out the elegantly gilded female figure representing Faith, clutching a spear and a shield, that acts as the cathedral weathervane (giraldilla in Spanish). In Spanish the verb girar means to turn or revolve.

So why is La Giralda so interesting? One reason is because the tower once formed the minaret of a mosque dating from 1184, in the days when Al Andaluz, today’s Spanish province of Andalucia, was ruled by Moors from North Africa, until it fell to the Christians in 1248. Another is that the architect, Ahmad Ibn Baso, was ordered by the ruling Emir of the day to make the minaret more beautiful than any other in existence, using patterned brick and stone construction.

Ascent to the summit

More interest awaits you if you decide, as I did, to acscend to the top of the tower. Access to the summit is by a series of 35 ramps, constructed inside the four walls, rather than by the steps that you might expect. This is a feature designed to allow it to be possible for two mounted horses to pass each other on the way up and down, in the days when prayers were called out to the faithful from the top. Having successfully wended my way up myself, I felt grateful that was only necessary to negotiate a series of slopes lit by natural light, rather than a potentially claustrophobic spiral staircase.

The view of the city from the top of the tower is well worth the climb. A 4 storey belltower was added to the top of the minaret when it was converted and incorporated into the huge gothic cathedral we see in the city today, after new building commenced in1401, and that’s where you end up. You also get a superb view of the patio of the orange trees with its ablutions fountain, the only other part of the ancient original mosque to have survived until the present day.

Why stories are significant

As you might have gathered by now, I was lucky when I visited Seville, to be  there as part of a small and well organised tour group, which experienced professionally guided tours of the major sights.

In order for visitors to make the most of a visit, to any place, I’d like to think that locals, qualified gudes or no,  will happily be prepared to share with them history, stories, myths and legends associated with that place, if they show an interest. It enriches everyone’s experiences  and enjoyment, which is, I think, what tourism is all about!

Stories can also be used to excite media interest, so there can be great rewards for tourism businesses, if hours of seemingly tedious background research reveals things that have the potential to fascinate the visitor of today. 

In my neck of the woods, in Kent, south east England, Visit Kent runs an innovative scheme that harnesses the enthusiasm of local residents to greet visitors to the local area, and give them a personal introduction and orientation tour, – free of charge. It’s called the Kent Greeters, and is modeled on the Big Apple Greeters of New York, part of the Global Greeters Network. Try it if you find yourself in the area. Visit Kent also arranges an annual ‘Big Day Out‘,  that encourages residents to get to know the local area better, and share their knowledge with visiting friends and relatives. This year it’s being held on Saturday 27th March.

Did you enjoy reading this post? Virtual Viv could undertake research or write for you. I  also help or teach people  how to market a tourism business online or offline. Comment about what I’ve written below, or contact me at Manifold Associates.

Until next time…

Does the postcard have a post modern future?

Will the postcard be dead by 2012?

One amongst  many questions now starting to exercise the brains of those involved in tourism industry planning for London 2012, is how the million or so visitors expected are going to communicate their experiences to friends back home. It’s a matter already under serious consideration by the publishers of greetings cards and picture postcards.

What, you might say, is the picture postcard not in terminal decline? There’s no doubt that more and more people are phoning, texting or picture messaging their thoughts, logging onto social media sites like Facebook, blogging travel journals, uploading photos onto Flickr,  or videos on  You Tube, or earning money from their writing published on Simonseeks?

Around two thirds of the visitors expected to travel to London and venues across other parts of England in July August and September 2012, will originate from within Britain, with the remaining third originating overseas. The question for publishers and retailers of cards is a prescient one. 

So, what  types of cards do people want to buy nowadays and why? Personally speaking, I still buy cards for various reasons: as souvenirs,  to paste up in travel journals or scrapbooks, to frame as pictures, use for competition entries, as bookmarks, or occasionally to send to friends back home while I’m away.

During my travels round Britain over the past few months, I’ve been doing some research on postcards, and have started to notice some new trends emerging. In spite of the rise of digital media options, smart phones and text message communication,  postcards continue to be widely available in England everywhere you’d expect, from post offices to bookshops, to greetings card shops and the stationery departments of large stores to retail outlets in malls and visitor attractions.

Trends in postcard sending

The postcard was first permitted to be sent through the post by Royal Mail in 1894. Royal Mail currently handles an average daily volume of 79m letters. This is 5m fewer than two years ago when volumes were at their peak. However, their figures also reveal that 135 million postcards are now sent each year, and somewhat surprisingly this is  30 million more than three years ago! Sales of postcards are even higher of course, since by no means all get sent through the post.

Brian Lund, editor of Picture Postcard Monthly, thinks that the sales figures might even indicate a return to the glory days of the picture postcard in post-war Britain, when sending them was the height of fashion:  ‘Back in the early 90s, when the internet and mobile phones took over, the number of people sending postcards dropped for obvious reasons – sending a text is easier and cheaper. But now people are realising that a postcard is far more thoughtful than a text message or an email, and that they can be displayed for all to see in the home.’

In the cause of research

I gathered information snooping round news stands at gateways for international visitors including Heathrow and Gatwick airports, and London’s St Pancras International station, as well as shops in various National Trust properties across the country, and by the new Surf Reef at Boscombe pier in Bournemouth, Dorset, as well as looking in on antiques and collectors fairs.

I have to apopolgise for adopting entirely unscientific qualitative research methods;  and freely admit that it’s possible that I looked at a biased sample and a statistically insignificant number of locations.

Postcards of the moment

During and following the recession, retailers have become more ruthless; and are only stocking postcard lines that sell. That’s helped weed out static and old fashioned styles of photography, something I’ve also noticed abroad.

With relatively few exceptions, I’ve noticed an improved standard of creative photography, and new creative treaments creeping in amongst many of the postcards now on sale, helping to keep displays appear more in tune with contemporary taste and maintainin buoyant sales.

Collectable cards

There’s room for nostalgia too, and you’ll sometimes find sections of the ubiquitous revolving card stands reserved for reproductions of sepia toned street scenes of yesteryear. In the same towns you may find antiques and collectors fairs featuring stalls selling the original postcards. There’s a lot of interest, as they’re part of history, yet most remain cheap to collect and display.

The exception are cards by Donald Fraser Gould McGill, an artist whose name has become synonymous with a whole genre of saucy seaside postcards, featuring an array of attractive young women, fat old ladies, drunken middle aged men, honeymoon couples and vicars in compromising circumstances.  Snap it up if you spot one!

New genres of card

What’s also been marked, is that creative treatments are no longer limited to photographs. Cartoon treatments of the local way of life, or a contempoary take on tradition, also have great appeal to visitors, especially if the subject matter is somewhat hard to photograph easily. A selection is illustrated above.

To see a fuller range of the latest cutting edge designs, as well as more traditional subject matter, follow these links :

• Pageantry Postcards
• Lee Gone Publications
• J. Salmon

Judges is one example of a firm of publishers that can help you create and publish postcards from your own photography, and I’m sure there are many more. If you’re a business, don’t forget to include your contact details and website address printed on the reverse side of the card, and ensure you make the most of it’s ability to become a fully fledged marketing tool.

In conclusion, I believe that all the indications are that the postcard is likely to live on in use for many years yet!

Until next time…

Dress Code: a way to win friends, or influence people?

Do dress codes make sense?

This week’s news that people dressed in pyjamas have been banned from Tesco in South Wales, set me thinking about the value, or otherwise, to hospitality businesses of publicising dress codes. We live in a much less formal society in the 21st century.

Personally speaking I wouldn’t dream of visiting the supermarket or anywhere outside my home dressed in pyjamas. It appears however, that a small minority of people have no idea that the way you dress can cause offence, and that  a small minority of people don’t care about the effect of their bare torso, or the slogan on their t shirt, on the sensibilities of their fellow human beings.

Whatever happened to the old adage  ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do‘.  Experience suggests that when abroad, or when faced with people from other cultural traditions, one must take care, and this is usually a safe strategy.

I’m not sure if there’s been an effect on the standard of dress by patrons of Tesco in Wales following their announcement. Although I realise it could be controversial, offering guidance on dress code  is something that I think can be helpful for patrons of hotels, restaurants, places of entertainment, or attendees of important social occasions. It applies   particularly when fine dining restaurants are involved; and it’s especially important for people hosting functions, banquets or other special events in premises where other members of the public are in evidence, to be upfront in communicating what’s expected.

Consequences of ignorance

If a business is prepared to bear the cost of security staff, to back up enforcement of dress code, people who in many instances have paid hansomely for entrance, can  get turned away. It famously seems to be reported in the media every year at events such as the Henley Royal Regatta (Stewards Enclosure) , or Royal Ascot (Royal Enclosure), where the dress codes are both specific and prescriptive concerning what’s permitted. Incidentally I’m sure it’s far better from a PR point of view, if those affected are quietly helped behind the scenes to make the necessary adjustments or changes to their appearance, rather than being excluded; and I’m sure that that’s what usually happens in the majority of cases.  Without enforcement, however, it’s always possible that some people could get offended.

In such circumstances confrontation might be a consequence of inappropriate dress.  So it’s often helpful if hosts, or event organisers, offer proactive written ‘guidance’ about what’s expected; because it helps guests avoid being embarrassed in company by their outfit, or getting offended by that of a fellow guest. Sometimes pictures on websites and in advertisements, illustrate the point, support the message, and are all that’s necessary. Good photography can be particularly helpful in this regard.

In general most people, especially overseas visitors,  like to conform to what they perceive to be ‘the norm‘, as was proved by John Sergeant’s experience, when presenting his recent Channel 4 series ‘On the Tourist Trail’ .  In one episode he took a party of female American visitors to be his guest at Royal Ascot. They had a lot of fun dressing up in the style of  ‘My Fair Lady’ (check out ‘Ascot Gavotte’ on You Tube),  and ‘playing at being posh’ ; but the programme showed them feeling uncomfortable and somewhat let down, when they spotted a small minority of racegoers in the grandstand not sporting similarly high sartorial standards. It’s always going to be important to manage peoples’ expectations carefully. It can be an uncomfortable, even embarrassing experience for people (and hosts) who have parted with a lot of cash and made a big effort to comply with dress code, only to see a minority visibly flouting the guidance with seeming impunity.

An invitation to participate in a formal event or a specialist active sport,  need not be a cause of grief to invitees due to the expense involved, either. I believe that it either is, or should be, easy and convenient for the hosts and/or organisers of events to volonteer to provide guidance and offer to make an introduction if necessary. (both for men and women) to suppliers who can hire out whatever’s necessary, from hats and dresses, to a sari or a black tie outfit, morning dress, or active sportswear, such as riding kit or wet suits.

Case study

Graham Grose, Managing Director of  the Thurlestone Hotel, south Devon, understands the issue better than most. Writing in the autumn newsletter, while admitting that it needs ‘careful management’ in view of the increasing trend towards last minute bookings, he refers to the  enforcement of dress code in the hotel’s fine dining restaurant as being ‘one of the trickiest problems we have to deal with’.

The management team at Thurlestone have been working on procedures to try and ensure that even late booking clients are made aware of this particular restaurant’ s strict ‘jacket and tie policy at dinner: ‘ We request that gentlemen wear a jacket, although the majority choose to wear a tie as well. Some guests, however prefer to dress more informally, and a theme … (running through online comment about Thurlestone) is that this dress code somehow makes us ‘old fashioned’ and ‘fuddy duddy’. On the other hand our feedback … is that this is a minority view and that most of you consider dinner in the Margaret Amelia restaurant to be a traditional ‘fine dining’ experience with appropriate attire an integral part of the experience. It is a matter of courtesy toward fellow diners, especially the ladies, and, unlike some other hotels we have no intention of relaxing our dress code’.

Sources of information about etiquette and dress code

For further information abou etiquette and dress code on important social occasions and events in Britain, Debretts is one of the  definitive sources. They even have a blog ‘Miss Debrett’ on the subject. For guidance and information about the meaning of the plethora of different dress codes, many of American origin, that now appear on invitations from ‘contemporary business casual’  and ‘creative black tie’  to  ‘smart casual’  simply Google ‘dress code’, and you’ll soon find the answer on a number of websites that appear in the results. No-one is ever offended if you ask what’s appropriate.

Let me know what you think about the subject!

Until next week…