Visit Britain a waste of space - official

[Windy]

And now they have removed the last page of that topic on the Accommodation Know How forum as it breached the forum guidelines (made Pam Foden look like an idiot).

Assinine. So i though it was time to have a little fun.

Dear Pam

I am disappointed to have had no acknowledgement of my email yesterday (but not as disappointed as I was to see that the censors have been at work on the AKH forum)

Anyway, realising that you must be too busy to observe the usual social niceties I thought I'd do a bit of legwork for you.

Here is a letter that, to be consistent , you need to send to Ian Stephens, Cumbria Tourism, Managing Director - his email is **********@cumbriatourism.org

Dear Ian

In the course of researching misuse of star rating logos , it has come to our attention that you operate a website, http://www.golakes.co.uk/ on which you display a five star Holiday Park logo and advertise a selection of lodges on the Limefitt Park (VisitEngland five star Park) and White Cross Bay Holiday Park (VisitEngland four star Park). The page for each park prominently displays VisitEngland’s five star Holiday Park logo on the right-hand side. (should have said 5 and 4 of course - oops)

VisitEngland gives permission to the Holiday Park awardee only to use this rating logo on their own website and so we must ask you to remove it from your http://www.golakes.co.uk website .

However, if any of the lodges that advertise on your http://www.golakes.co.uk have a valid VisitEngland rating, with the written permission of the owner, the rating logo may be displayed as a part of their entry. It is also quite acceptable to mention in the copy describing each lodge that the accommodation is situated on a four or five star park, as appropriate.

We look forward to receiving confirmation from you that the inappropriately used VisitEngland Holiday Park star rating logos have been removed from the pages in question.

Yours sincerely

Pam Foden
Operations & Engagement Manager
VisitEngland

Would you please let me know when you have done this and what action has been taken by Cumbria Tourism as a result.

Once we have this one cleared up I have another dozen or so White Cross Bay infringements waiting for you and that's just the result of 10 minutes on Google!

Of course you may prefer to take a common sense approach and revoke your request that I remove the equivalent logos from my sites.

Your call.

Best wishes as always

John

[kendalcottages]

As I understand it (and forgive me if I'm wrong as I don't partake in this wonderful system that you all so enjoy ), the data held on the golakes website is input into the DMS.

The data in the DMS is then fed out to VisitBritain, the TIC network and, I think, VisitEngland.

So presumably these same idiosyncrasies appear on VE's own site so they need to write to themselves too??

[BarryLakes]

Dear Pam

I am disappointed to have had no acknowledgement of my email yesterday (but not as disappointed as I was to see that the censors have been at work on the AKH forum)

Anyway, realising that you must be too busy to observe the usual social niceties I thought I'd do a bit of legwork for you.

Here is a letter that, to be consistent , you need to send to Ian Stephens, Cumbria Tourism, Managing Director - his email is **********@cumbriatourism.org

Dear Ian

In the course of researching misuse of star rating logos , it has come to our attention that you operate a website, http://www.golakes.co.uk/ on which you display a five star Holiday Park logo and advertise a selection of lodges on the Limefitt Park (VisitEngland five star Park) and White Cross Bay Holiday Park (VisitEngland four star Park). The page for each park prominently displays VisitEngland’s five star Holiday Park logo on the right-hand side. (should have said 5 and 4 of course - oops)

VisitEngland gives permission to the Holiday Park awardee only to use this rating logo on their own website and so we must ask you to remove it from your http://www.golakes.co.uk website .

However, if any of the lodges that advertise on your http://www.golakes.co.uk have a valid VisitEngland rating, with the written permission of the owner, the rating logo may be displayed as a part of their entry. It is also quite acceptable to mention in the copy describing each lodge that the accommodation is situated on a four or five star park, as appropriate.

We look forward to receiving confirmation from you that the inappropriately used VisitEngland Holiday Park star rating logos have been removed from the pages in question.

Yours sincerely

Pam Foden
Operations & Engagement Manager
VisitEngland

Would you please let me know when you have done this and what action has been taken by Cumbria Tourism as a result.

Once we have this one cleared up I have another dozen or so White Cross Bay infringements waiting for you and that's just the result of 10 minutes on Google!

Of course you may prefer to take a common sense approach and revoke your request that I remove the equivalent logos from my sites.

Your call.

Best wishes as always

John

You have far to much time on your hands

[Windy]

You have far to much time on your hands

I see you have now lost your self-awarded five star rating from your signature as well as from the Lets Stay site Barry.

Obviously my time isn't totally wasted then

[greenbarn]

Windy, my latest post on AKH has made it - for now, anyway - as it has so much doublespeak that I doubt if they can work out whether it's attacking, praising or what. However, the previous post (the one that came immediately after your now departed one) including the line "Pam Foden at her worst" has now disappeared. I think I might just go in and edit mine in a while - edits don't seem to get checked.....

[kendalcottages]

[Windy]

[Edited by admin to avoid legal issues]

[greenbarn]

Bonkers isn't it? Now supposing that instead of sticking up a logo for White Lime Rose Paradise Park with the official VE 5 star symbol (naughty naughty ) you approach WLRP Park and ask them if they'd like a spot of free advertising on your site (or they approach you for that matter - makes no difference) and they say ooh yes please and can you incorporate the 5 star symbol as we are an official and genuine recipient (or "awardee" if you must) and it forms a part of our logo anyway. Are you allowed to display it, or not........?

[Windy]

[Edited by admin to avoid legal issues]

Nice to know that Sam Shimeld reads what I write about him.

It was all true by the way (or at least it was true if what I was told by Pam Foden was true)

Sorry if I placed you in an awkward situation Paolo - that wasn't my intention.

[Windy]

I have no idea what they are trying to say in this email except that it seems VB and G4S c***ed up. Imagine either of those two organisations renowned for their competence doing that!

I do hope that my opinions given before they closed the survey will still count

Dear Sir/Madam,


G4S Assessment Services (Quality in Tourism) is currently in a competitive tender for a new licence to run VisitEngland’s quality assessment contract. As part of our preparation Quality in Tourism is therefore seeking to gain customer feedback on the service we currently provide and your views on the NQAS. As such we have engaged with an independent organisation, Shine Feedback Ltd, and you have recently received an e-mail with an invitation to take part in that survey.

This survey is not endorsed or commissioned by VisitEngland and we now realise that we included questions that related to areas that are solely the responsibility of VisitEngland and not part of VisitEngland’s tender brief. We apologise for their inclusion in our survey. We do, however, thank those of you who have already taken part in the survey and we will be passing your comments and the survey results to VisitEngland.

The survey itself is now closed.

[greenbarn]

Windy - I also got my response to the survey in before I had that email. You don't think that between us we made them decide to abandon their survey do you?

[Windy]

I will treasure the thought that that might be the case GB

[Windy]

PMSL

I was gobsmacked to read this on the website that started this saga:

We are pleased to announce that over the past few weeks Stayin have been working closely with VisitEngland.com, amongst other things the VisitEngland quality department has spent time checking that everyone who advertises on any of our website who has a star rating from either VisitEngland or the AA has selected the option and is displaying their rating proudly on the Stayin sites. In addition to this VisitEngland.com have also linked through to our websites and even published a short news story in their latest addition of their "Quality edge" magazine, which goes out to over 25,000 homes and business's. We are proud to be working with such a well recognise and trusted brand and all this extra publicity can only be a good thing for Stayin and our customers.

Ah bless him!

You'd never guess that when I first raised the fact that people on his site were falsely displaying ratings they hadn't qualified for with him, this guy's response was "I have now looked at the adverts in question and can confirm that we believe the way in which the lodges are advertised is not misleading". You might not guess either that, according to what Pam Foden wrote to me, what the VE team were doing whilst they were "working closely" with him was actually "a full manual check of the VisitEngland and AA ratings on his website". (Its all documented Paolo - no need to remove this if he squeaks at you again.)

So now it seems you end up being rewarded by VB for not removing unearned star rating when they are pointed out to you. If, instead, you make VE waste time checking your listings they apparently reciprocate by writing you a puff piece in Quality Edge and give you links from their web site (although I can't actually find the link he refers to.)

What a bizarre world we live in.

Anyway, there's a lesson for us all there isn't there

[charles cawley]

I should not get too fed up with all this.

What is coming our way will blow this and other idiotic behaviour out of the water.

Where it was tolerated as a nonsense by product of a bureaucratic system, when things get really tough anger will deal with this sort of thing very quickly.

It is a typical smokescreen approach designed to muddy and confuse the waters. A similar system works when senior managers in the NHS and elsewhere appear culpable and are rewarded or given titles. This is another way of saying what you see is not right and we think otherwise... so cleverly spiking guns and dodging responsibility.

[Windy]

Hmmm --

Ad here is what was written in Quality Edge

COME TOGETHER
visitengland is pleased to announce a new collaboration with a publisher of three popular regional websites that advertise serviced and self-catering accommodation in the lake district and yorkshire: www etc (3 web addresses given) has carried out a full check of more than 1,000 properties advertised on these sites to confirm their accuracy and will maintain regular contact with the website operator as new businesses sign up or any lapse from our scheme, as we do with www.laterooms.com

No mention of what led to them having to do that check.

What sort of message does it give out when somebody who contravenes your ratings scheme in spite of being told several times that he is out of order and ignoring the fact, ends up with getting free coverage in the magazine run by the rating scheme? He's probably killing himself laughing at Visit England.