That’s Cornwall’s Eden Project – just to be clear. The start of the week saw us filming and producing a quick-turnaround film marking the planting of Europe’s first Redwood forest, see our blog here for more on that.
Then it was back to the world’s biggest greenhouse where tourism was on the agenda. A special conference, funded by the South West Tourism Growth Fund aimed at attracting overseas visitors to Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset was attended by tourism businesses from across the South West.
The headline speaker was travel journalist Simon Calder; he came armed with tips and anecdotes on how to lure foreign visitors to the South West. You can see an excerpt from the interview we recorded with him here.
The South West Tourism Growth Fund
The South West Tourism Growth Fund is aiming to deliver additional visitor nights equating to £60m in international visitor expenditure, create 1,000 jobs and deliver a step-change in collaboration and partnership working across South West England.
By creating new ways of working together the South West will offer a ‘joined up the product’ for visitors. Sound View works with tourism businesses across the region and welcomes the collaborative and partnership approach and supports the aims of the initiative. We are busy working on video content aimed specifically at overseas visitors, watch this space for more of that in the coming months.
The conference was kicked off by Malcolm Bell, Chief Executive of Visit Cornwall and a spokesman for the South West Tourism Growth Fund Project Board: “As we speak, there are international, multi-million-pound marketing campaigns in Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, USA, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand promoting and selling the amazing South West region and its nationally leading destinations.”
“To make the most of this once in a decade investment by the Government, we need businesses to be market-ready to capture and deliver for these new customers and improve their profitability. I ask as many businesses as possible to take advantage of the conference and workshop programme – it makes sense for your business and will benefit the region.”
