Tourism row erupts (From Western Telegraph)

Tourism row erupts

Criticism levelled at tourism marketing strategies for Pembrokeshire has been refuted by leaders in the field.

A report in the Western Telegraph outlined the £370,000 campaign mounted by the Pembrokeshire Marketing Consortium, which aims to add £10 million to tourism income in the county following the foot and mouth crisis.

But one operator, Malcolm Calver, of Wales National Parks Holidays, Manorbier, is concerned that £290,000 was given by Pembrokeshire County Council to the consortium.

Any public money allocated to tourism promotion in Pembrokeshire should be for products which promote the Pembrokeshire Guide, which assists the commercial ratepayers who contribute financially to its production, he commented.

Mr Calver was also surprised to receive brochures from two self-catering holiday letting agencies when he responded to adverts in a national Sunday newspaper which showed pictures of the Pembrokeshire Guide.

He claimed: This to me would appear not as co-operation in promoting Pembrokeshire, but a way in giving the self-catering agencies involved in the new project unprecedented preferential treatment over the many, and sometimes small, advertisers in the Pembrokeshire Guide, and also those other holiday letting companies not involved in the new marketing project.

The time has come for more openness in regard to public money allocation, for Pembrokeshire County Council to consult all of the tourism industry and make extra effort in producing and distributing the guide earlier than it managed this year.

However, Pembrokeshire Marketing Consortium chairman Matthew Evans, of Coastal Cottages of Pembrokeshire, has pointed out that Mr Calver was invited to join the new campaign, but declined and had chosen not to attend public meetings.

He explained that the Pembrokeshire Guide is mailed to everyone who responds to the campaigns advertisements as well as those placed by the county council.

The campaign is financing 40,000 extra copies for this purpose, so that all guide advertisers benefit, especially the smaller advertiser who does not have its own major marketing budget.

Names of inquirers are put on to a database which all operators are entitled to use. The two self-catering agencies referred to are the only two companies currently using the database in a pro-active manner, he explained. I would encourage Mr Calver to call me personally if he would like to take advantage of the database.

A county council spokesman emphasised that the grants given were paid on the understanding that they would be pooled and used for promotions to benefit the tourist industry in general.

The industry had been constantly consulted on the progress of the consortium, whose activities were totally open and transparent.

The arrival of the 2002 Pembrokeshire Guide on December 21st was six weeks later than normal, but this had been agreed between the council and tourism trade because of the foot and mouth outbreak.