Welcome to our fortnightly e-bulletin packed with information about what the North East England Regional Tourism Team have been up to. This week we focus on UK campaign activity.

UK Marketing Activity »
Business Development Unit »
Visitor Services Unit »
Tourism North East online »

UK MARKETING ACTIVITY

The Outdoor Show

North East England attended The Outdoor Show at Birmingham NEC from 16 -18 March with stand partners Hadrian's Wall Country, Sustrans and Visit Tees Valley.

The event attracted a large audience and the North East stand had a steady flow of interested outdoor enthusiasts keen to explore the North East region. The varied requests included queries about our National Trail walking routes, scuba diving locations and river canoeing.

The exhibition has lots to offer the outdoor enthusiast from discounted sports wear, seminars with popular stars such as Bill Oddie and Brian Blessed, a climbing wall, and an assortment of stands promoting outdoor opportunities, both within the UK and internationally. The show continues to grow in popularity and was a great opportunity for One NorthEast and partners to showcase North East England.

For more information contact Caroline Adams.

Walking Campaign

Marketing activity for the walking campaign is well underway and will build on last year’s campaign. Planned activity for 2007 commenced 31 March 2007 and includes inserts into key national media such as the Guardian Weekend and specialist Walking publications, attendance at The Outdoor Show, development of the walking microsite and electronic direct mail. A new walking guide will be launched in September 2007.

The new walking microsite which will support all of the marketing activity throughout the campaign was launched at the end of March. New features such as downloadable podscrolls, six new walks and searchable routes are now available. Visit www.visitnortheastengland.com/walking to have a look at the new site.

For more information contact Katherine Hodgson.

Gardens Campaign

Last year saw the launch of the first regional campaign to promote gardens. Marketing activity will commence end April – July 2007 and will build on last year’s campaign. Campaign activity will target key media such as BBC Gardener’s World and The Garden together with national publications which have garden supplements. There will be attendance at the Gardener’s World Exhibition in June, direct mail and the launch of the new gardens’ microsite which will go live end April.

For more information contact Katherine Hodgson.

Cycling Campaign

The first phase of the cycling campaign commenced on 14 April and will carry on until end May 2007. The campaign is targeting two audiences, leisure cyclists and extreme cyclists. Activity will take place in national titles such as the Guardian and Independent on Sunday and niche publications including Cycling Weekly and Mountain Bike Rider, the media chosen reflects the different audiences. A brand new dedicated microsite, www.visitnortheastengland.com/cycling went live on 14 April. The microsite contains cycling information, route map downloads and features Headcam videos.

For more information contact Ross Cockton

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BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT UNIT

Improving the Visitor Experience

In a bid to continually improve the quality of the region’s tourism attractions, One NorthEast holds a series of VAQAS workshops throughout the year using a different host attraction for each.

The workshops allow a unique opportunity to examine all aspects of the quality of the visitor experience in the company of like minded operators and guided by quality assurance staff from VAQAS. The next VAQAS workshops will take place on 26 April at Ford and Etal Estates, Berwick upon Tweed and 15 May at Cameron House Brewery, Hartlepool beginning at 10.00am and finishing at approximately 3.30pm. To reserve a place, please register your interest on 0191 229 6840 or e-mail Laura Lowrey

Last Chance for Spring Training

The Welcome to Excellence Spring Training programme comes to an end in May.

There are limited places still available on the following courses:

To reserve a place, please register your interest on 0191 229 6840 or e-mail Laura Lowrey

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VISITOR SERVICES UNIT

Access to Your Information

Desti.ne Extranet is giving tourism businesses more access to their information than ever before! Benefits of the system include the ability to:

• update information on the Regional Tourism database with changes reflected across all Desti.ne powered websites including visitnortheastengland.com, VisitBritain and Enjoy England
• view businesses own performance statistics on individual Desti.ne linked websites. For example, the number of hits they receive, the number of times their entry was added to a visitor’s itinerary and referrals to their own website
• access to information businesses need to make decisions about how they grow and develop
• fill in their ‘information collection forms’ online instead of making changes to paper based forms including the ability to upload new images

All you need to start using Extranet now is a username and password.

For more information, contact Karen O’Donnell on 0191 229 6831 or e-mail Destinesupport

Update on Frontdesk

The value for online bookings via Desti.ne continues to grow due in part to the introduction of the lastminute.com channel at the beginning of February. The monthly total value of bookings for the first three months of 2007 is:

A series of informal lunches has been a great success in explaining the benefits of Desti.ne Frontdesk using local businesses as case studies. Some businesses signed up on the day whilst others requested further demonstrations.

Distribution Day also proved popular with many businesses signing up to Desti.ne Extranet on the day and requesting further information or demonstrations of Desti.ne Frontdesk.

To get Desti.ne Frontdesk, FrontDoor or FrontRow, call Eviivo on 0800 422 0088 or email Destinefrontdesk.

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FIND OUT MORE

If you would like to find out more on tourism in the region, visit www.tourismnortheast.co.uk - a dedicated website for the tourism industry in North East England.

RECOMMEND A FRIEND

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If you no longer wish to receive the Regional Tourism Team Update, or you need to update your details with us, please contact Vicky Paris.