Helping Rural Tourism

Over the past 4 years 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

We have a close association with Vernon Cornell, a leading independent authority on B&B and self-catering businesses, and Barry Davies of Davies & Co, an eminent planning specialist and chair of the National Farm Attractions Network. We also network with specialists in rural tourism website development, and building design. For further reading, we have several reports available for download produced for the regional tourist board.