One of the first of the new VisitBritain START quality improvement programmes launches on Lincolnshire’s coast on November 14th. East Lindsey District Council, better known as home to resorts Skegness, Mablethorpe and the sweeping countryside of the Lincolnshire Wolds, has been working for the last year with its hoteliers and B&B owners to adapt the new VisitBritain scheme to fit its own local needs. Called ‘Rosebud’, the East Lindsey scheme is in partnership with Lincolnshire Tourism and co-funded by East Midlands Tourism. It aims to reach 50 businesses in its first 6 months. Since January 2006 VisitBritain has had a policy of only promoting accommodation that is graded in the National Quality Assurance Scheme (NQAS). The START programme has been developed as a way of helping local authorities work with their non-graded accommodation to reach the one star entry level in NQAS. The scheme’s greatest benefit is that it can be adapted to suit local needs. East Lindsey has many older, traditional resort hotels and the process of developing Rosebud has enabled the hoteliers to come together to make collective decisions about the future of the resort and to see how small incremental steps will eventually lead to improved quality standards. Rosebud is a three-year rolling programme: a property deciding to enrol receives advisory visits and institutes a programme of gradual improvements until it reaches the NQAS standards. Once in the NQAS, the properties are marketed by VisitBritain.
More information: Date: 24.10.06 | 