Visit Britain changes could lead to worse

[charles cawley]

Local changes to www.visitherefordshire.co.uk could be a warning that changes to Visit Britain could be a case of 'out of the frying pan, into the fire'.

A charity to be called www.thelandofwye.co.uk is to rebrand 'Visit Herefordshire' as 'The Land of Wye Not'. The River Wye is 100% in South Herefordshire so this apparent rebranding will benefit that area to the cost of the rest of the county. Arguably, it could, equally, have been called 'Visit South Herefordshire'.

This development has been made possible with the change in arrangements. For many years, 'Visit Herefordshire' was in the incompetent well meaning hands of the public sector... now it appears to be in the hands of people who appear to be simply out of their depth.

Meanwhile, an enterprising cottage operator is using the URL www.landofwye.co.uk. This web address was registered in March 2011. It seems The Land of Wye has not taken basic precautions to protect the use of its name. A quagmire of incompetence appears to be the order of the day. Lets hope Visit Britain's changes are not going the same way.

[CSE]

Please don´t let Windy see your posting!
viewtopic.php?t=14605

[charles cawley]

The guest house could argue that they are the first to commercially use www.landofwye.co.uk to any effect as www.thelandofwye.co.uk is not yet even a complete or a publicly announced web site.

Herefordshire Tourism could have a bit of a problem on their hands for failing to protect their proposed new brand name. Unless, of course, Herefordshire Tourism has registered The Land of Wye as a trading name and has appropriate Copyright protection.

The web can make an apparent lack or IT expertise a very costly affair.

[kendalcottages]

thelandofwyenot.com and thelandofwyenot.co.uk are both still available too. Why don't these people think to register these domains before they make these announcements?!

[charles cawley]

Because many lose the art of listening with the growth of their wealth. I should say this does not in any way imply that this is the case here.

Really useful people keep listening however powerful or rich they become. Most, free from financial fear, grow lazy and shut off their ears preferring to use position and influence to get things done rather than listening and convincing.

We are using the e-mail forgetnorthherefordshire@thelandofwye.org to send messages to Visit Herefordshire. Of course, once things are put right, we shall transfer registration at cost and there are no plans to activate a web site.

[Margaret]

Glad to see you have a sense of humour Charles!

What can we think of for Powys?

thelandyoudidn'tknowofsocouldntforget?

[charles cawley]

Thanks Margaret. Sometimes people who should know better present a target you can hit with your eyes shut.

I copied the recent e-mail to tourism@visitherefordshire.co.uk and to web@visitherefordshire.co.uk and even tried to fax them on 01432 363031

The e-mails bounced and the fax number on the site I tried to use earlier this week was incorrect. All three bits of information are still to be found at http://www.visitherefordshire.co.uk/contact/

You couldn't make this up. If this is a sign of things to come, the changes to Visit Britain could end up creating something far worse.

[Windy]

Please don´t let Windy see your posting

Alas too late.

Charles - as you say you couldn't make it up. Love your email address.

I think that all of the tourism quangos have led a charmed life for too long.

My own experience when trying to get anything of value out of them has has been of mostly well-meaning but ultimately rather useless individuals living in a cocooned environment. I an just imagine the "creative" meeting that came up with "The Land of Wye Not". We'll probably end up with "Better Lakes than Never" up here.

To be honest I don't know how much or how little effect the total disappearance of Visit Lalaland or Cumbria Tourism would have on my business. I suspect that Cumbria Tourism does rather more for me so I have renewed my membership with them this year but it was a tough decision and may not be repeated next year unless I see some meaningful results.

Having said that CT too are guilty of latching on to a part of their territory to the exclusion of the rest. Ask Greenbarn what he thinks of the fact that the official tourist board website for Cumbria Tourism is called www.golakes.co dot uk thus excluding the businesses in Cumbria that, like his, fall outside of "The Lake District".

The tourist boards, national and regional, need some sort of shake up but God know how this government is going to do it.

All their b@ll@cks about supporting tourism doesn't sit well with huge cuts and a minister who also "deals with" sport and culture.

[charles cawley]

The irony of all this is that Country Holiday Lets stands to gain by the failure of Visit Herefordshire / The Land of Wye. But I feel that the whole county needs to do well and a bit of that will rub off on us.

Sometimes, there is little alternative but to resort to ridicule and noise on the internet to remind people of their duties.