Dorset Brochure!

At last – a ‘Dorset’ brochure….. as they say – I could not believe it!!.

I have been dreaming of a ‘Dorset’ Brochure for over 20 years and over the last 5 years I have been involved with Destination Dorset a public/private sector partnership and two of the initial objectives were to create a single brochure and a single website for Dorset to make it easier for our visitors and to reduce duplication and costs across the 6 local authorities involved with the promotion of tourism in the County.

It has taken 5 years for the local authorities to finally do it … but hopefully in the future we will have one brochure and one website – www.visit-dorset.com.

The next big step is for individual district council to stop producing individual brochures and turn off the separate websites which will be more cost effective in concentrating on promoting Dorset and making it easy for all the visitors who recognise our destination to find accommodation, attractions and events.

I know that we are all concerned about the public sector spending cuts, but this is one example of where the pooling of resources is sensible and to the benefit of the tourism industry and our visitors – just think what we could have achieved with the savings over the last 20 years if the local authorities had been willing to co-operate and set up one office promoting and supporting tourism and in doing so work with all the tourism businesses.

Hopefully the new Government Tourism Strategy will help further moves in the right direction.

Anyway – lets be positive and look forward – progress may have been very slow and expensive but they are getting there!!