Communication improves between National operators and tourist boards

WHILE regional tourist boards have had plenty of contact with hotel and tourism operators at the regional level, there has been a lack of contact between national operators and the tourist boards.

To rectify this, a one-day workshop was held at the end of May at the New Connaught Rooms in central London.

The workshop, organised by the Yorkshire and Humberside Tourist Board, brought together 11 regional tourist boards and the British Tourist Authority (BTA) and the English Tourist Board (ETB) with around 100 sales and marketing executives from national companies.

Brian Handley, chief executive of Yorkshire & Humberside Tourist Board, said the role of regional tourist boards was to help tourism operators and to make sure tourism products met customers expectations and requirements.

He said that in the light of changes to the BTA and ETB, the workshop would provide a forum for tourism operators to find out how regional tourist boards worked and to discuss opportunities for joint promotions.

He said regional tourist boards all had travel trade departments and other resources operators could use.

John Burley, sales and marketing director of Friendly Hotels, welcomed the opportunity to meet with regional tourist boards. He said hotel groups had got to learn to be flexible in their dealings with tourist boards and had to look for mutual goals.