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Sherwood & the Dukeries Tourism Group

 

                                               

Sherwood & the Dukeries Tourism Group

 

                            Notes from meeting held on Tuesday 28^th November 2006.

                                              The White Hart. Ollerton

 

13 members attended the meeting. Apologies were received from Cll’rs. Mary Stokes and Barry Bowles. Sandra Withington. Janet Carr. Janet Easom. Susan Santos. Nigel and Sue Bundy. Carla Madeley.

 

John Anderson gave a summary of the Sherwood Living Legend  conference that was held at Thoresby on the 22^nd November. A bid has been entered to win £25-50m. funding under the National Lottery, Living Legends competition. Sherwood has been selected as one of the final six projects. The winner will be decided by a national telephone vote to be held in the Autumn of 2007. John distributed some notes on the conference, if you give him a call he will post a copy to you.

 

Chris Daniels gave an update on the Group web site. There have been more than 300,000 hits on the site since it was launched. October was the best month to date with 46,000 hits. Robin Hood is the most searched item on the site. Chris stated that from analysis of  web site activity, the shortage of tourist attractions is a major factor preventing growth of tourism in our region. Chris has all of the statistics relating to the site, please phone him if you would like further details.

 

Helen Sissons of Experience Nottinghamshire gave a comprehensive review of current and planned activites. She kindly copied some notes to me as follows.

 

1. Robin Hood short break campaign

Short break leaflet is being developed now to be on shelves mid December. Format is DL 8 panel with a focus on Robin Hood, families, and the Robin Hood trail. Advertising for attractions and accommodation will also be included. www.robinhoodbreaks.com is now live and our combined visitors to this site and www.visitnotts.com last month 91,000.

2. Walking Publication

EN is working with Country Walking Magasine to produce a new publication that promotes 8 walks around the county from the Vale of Belvoir to Creswell. The publication is in production and will be the main fulfilment piece at the National Outdoor Show in March 2007. It will also be available on request from TICs at a cost of £1.50.

3.  Robin Hood Trail

EN is currently bidding for £169k to develop a trail around the county that explores the legend of Robin Hood. If successful, the trail will be interpreted using traditional panels and wind-up technology to produce an audio trail. The tour will be adapted for groups and coach tour market. The bid will also have an element of event development to support the Robin Hood Festival 2007.

 

4. Event Welcoming

A second bid has been made the Alliance SSP to enable EN to welcome events in the north of the county. This includes promotion, town dressing, bannering etc to improve the visitor experience and use events as key tourism attractors.

5. The Mayflower Trail improvement scheme

EN is also bidding for around £25k to install interpretation in Bassetlaw around the Mayflower Trail. The bid, again to the Alliance SSP is being considered at present and we hope to have a decision on all three applications before Xmas.

6. Robin Hood Airport tourism website

The Airport Marketing Group is working with Robin Hood Airport to produce a new website that promotes the surrounding regions of South Yorkshire and East Midlands. The site will show geographical areas and places of interest around the key themes of heritage and culture, sport and leisure, TV and movie locations, shopping. Our focus will be on the Robin Hood, Pilgrim Fathers and city breaks. The site will be funded by the airport and should be live in January.

7. Events

The main events EN will be attending on Leisure Tourism are; The National Outdoorshow, British Travel Trade Fair, Dublin Holiday World.

East Midlands Tourism will be promoting the region at international events including Fitur – Madrid, Vakantebeurs – Holland, Salon de Vacances – Belgium, ITB-Berlin. Notts will be featured at all these shows.

The return of the Discovering Notts Exhibition – diary date May 5^th and 6^th 2007 – Rufford Country Park.

If anyone has questions or comments they can send them to me directly on Helen.sisson@experiencenottinghamshire.com

 

Russell Hocking, a new member and the proprietor of Pilgrim Fathers Tours, gave an insight into his business and how he came to develop it. He has a publicity leaflet and copies can be obtained from Russell on 01777 711497.

 

Norman Pillow, also a new member, gave an overview of Sherwood Forest Castle, a log cabin development that has many of the props from the Robin Hood Prince of Thieves film.