Devon and Cornwall upset by tourism campaign
VisitEngland has upset tourism businesses in Devon and Cornwall over its latest advertising campaign.
The advert features a map (pictured here), which represents Devon with two trees and Cornwall with a peacock. Wales, meanwhile, is represented by a bright pink pig.
Meanwhile, other parts of the UK have been featured with more detailed and artistic images of their well known tourist landmarks.
"By only drawing trees on this map VisitEngland is just telling people, there’s nothing here," said one Devon accommodation owner to the North Devon Journal.
The furore has prompted website stayindevon.co.uk to create its own map showing what Devon has to offer (pictured here).
"It is disappointing that such a diverse county is represented simply by two trees," said managing director James Morris.
"Whilst we support VisitEngland and what they try to achieve, it’s important that places such as Devon are given the credit they deserve as a tourist destination.
"When we saw the advert we were a little bewildered that it didn’t show this fantastic county in a much better light."
VisitEngland was quick to defend itself, saying the reason some regions weren’t as well represented was because they didn’t chose to take part in the campaign.
"We work incredibly closely with Cornwall and Devon and are currently involved in a number of campaigns together," said a spokeswoman.
"However this is not one they chose to be part of and as such the map did not carry specific reference to the destination.
"The Peacock idea actually came from inspiration the illustrator had when she was holidaying in Cornwall at a place called Trago Mills which has Peacocks but it was not intended to be representative of the breadth of Cornwall’s tourism offering."
She said the tourist office regularly runs other campaigns with its tourism partners across England, including one in the pipeline designed to help destinations impacted by the bad weather this winter.
"In addition to this we run a number of ‘match-funded’ thematic marketing campaigns whereby VisitEngland doubles the amount of money a destination can contribute to a campaign ensuring they receive more media coverage for their budget and supporting them to promote the destination to drive business to their area," she said.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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