Rural Tourism

We have undertaken a series of projects for the South East Regional Tourist Board, Tourism South East.

Rural tourism projects include:

• A B&B sector study, identifying issues and opportunities for the B&Bs, together with a toolkit to help local authorities support B&Bs in their areas
• New product development of 'health and well-being' rural visitor experiences, together with business guidance materials
• Delivering seminars to rural pubs and B&Bs on business development
• Preparing business guidance materials for those looking to establish a B&B or self-catering business
• Preparing data and intelligence to feed into local authority Local Development Framework policy drafting
• Researching the farm-based B&B sector

We have also worked with a number of county and local authorities to improve the networking, communication, knowledge and skills in the B&B and self-catering sectors.

Our services to rural tourism include:

• Market research and intelligence
• Competitor analysis
• New product development
• Feasibility studies
• Investment appraisal
• Problem solving
• Compiling evidence and argument to support planning applications
• Preparing business plans
• Marketing and promotion strategy, and directing businesses towards effective promotion solutions
• Quality assurance schemes
• Raising finance including grant aid
• Legal and regulatory advice
• Networking businesses into the local tourism support networks
• Performance improvement
• Budgeting and performance monitoring
• Audits of supply
• Development of data and intelligence to support local, regional and national tourism policy formulation
• Training and continuous professional development workshops and seminars for rural accommodation providers