Visit Lincolnshire's 'Success Through Quality' Conference

There's a big tidy up afoot today - and no, we're not doing an early office spring clean...(yet)

Sharon Stone, Executive Assistant to the CEO organised a fantastic day for over 100 delegates set within the sprawling and luxurious facilities of the Petwood Hotel in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire. Our annual 'Success Through Quality' Conference is always a chance for Lincolnshire's tourism businesses, valuable stakeholders and partners to enjoy a day of inspiring presentations, workshops and speeches celebrating Lincolnshire as a visitor destination.

Highlights included an enlightening keynote speech from Phillippa Forrester, of 'Tomorrow's World' fame and more recently a champion for environment and sustainability. We were amazed how Phillippa had travelled the world and seen so many fascinating creatures and sights...all with 3 small children in tow, and in some pretty remote locations.

We were then given a great insight into the lives of Paul and Flora Bennett from Brackenborough Hall Coach House Holidays. The couple have won awards for their committment to family holidays, making their 5* converted coach house accommodation (sleeps up to 24, in case you're interested in making a visit)  into a haven for families. Everyone was delighted with Flora's idea to assemble a dressing up box and put it in the cottage for kids (and adults, so we heard!) to act out merry pirate and cowboy adventures.

After a spot of Lincoln Red Beef & all the trimmings for lunch, followed by yummy Plum Bread Pudding (I feel full just thinking about it again) we dived off into a selection of workshops to learn something for the afternoon. I ran the social media/online arm of the Top Marketing Tips - altogether a very useful session, if not a little like speed-dating for our delegates, who had to swap rooms every 20 minutes.

So we're all having a bit of a sort out here...(Sharon particularly - she's certainly clocking up the recommended 10,000 steps)...clearing up the aftermath of display banners, goodie bags and feedback forms...

If you'd like to view some of the documents and presentations from the day, we're happily loading them onto our SlideShare account http://www.slideshare.net/VisitLincolnshire


Useful links:

•  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippa_Forrester

•  http://www.brackenboroughhall.com/

More good news from our Press Office

Great news from our press office – I’ve just received the latest coverage about Lincolnshire from one of the UK’s top travel writers, Christopher Somerville.

Chris is a trail blazer in his profession. He writes for many national newspapers and has a faithful following of readers who avidly read his reviews and follow in his footsteps by visiting the same accommodation and attractions and he does.

Before Christmas I spent a couple of days helping Chris plan his Lincolnshire visit – giving him contacts, suggesting accommodation, supplying a press pack and meeting him to make sure his stay here ticked all the boxes.

The final article in the Financial Times is a huge success and takes us one step closer to raising Lincolnshire’s profile as a place to visit.

Read it here for yourself http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/eee3eadc-ef63-11de-86c4-00144feab49a.html

Scam Reservation Enquiries to Tourism Businesses

It's an all too common problem these days: many of us received unwanted emails from people we've never heard of, whether it's a dodgy pharmecutical message or a plea for money from an unfortunate individual from half way round the world.

We're growing ever wise to such scams and thankfully, most of our email boxes are armed with junk mail filters and spam boxes. Indeed, if something does slip through to the inbox most of us will simply hit 'delete' and forget about it. However sometimes the crooks need to be pretty clever to avoid arousing our suspicions - see this one from Wendy Breeds at Old Mill House B&B, Maltby le Marsh.

Good Morning folks in Lincoln,

Just wanted to chat about the increasing number of scam reservation emails we are picking up.  We have had odd curious emails all the while we have been in business, just over two years now.  We tend to ignore them but were not certain of their purpose until today.  We picked up one this morning and I gave it more thought than usual.  I gave it more consideration because a couple of  months back, our son advertised his motor bike at on-line auction and he became involved in a scam whereby, the purchaser, from abroad of course, sent more money than was necessary, paid by bank draft on an Eire bank in Euros.  Of course before the draft could be cleared, the purchaser was requesting the excess to be returned.  Quite farcical but we observed the whole process with common sense and no money changed hands. We heard no more from the potential purchaser.

This affair has naturally sat in the back of my mind and when an email turned up this morning, the penny actually dropped.  The request is usually for three or more double rooms, for seven or more nights...which could be a substantial amount.  (The email is pasted to the bottom of this.)  I can imagine that the procedure would be that upon the request for a deposit, they would pay up front, then before the payment clears, request a refund.  The payment would then bounce and I would be out of pocket.

The reservation request often has a nice little story wrapped up in it, such as they are a bible study group from Central America, or they will be travelling with a linguist etc.

It didn’t take two minutes to find the following website www.tourismnortheast.co.uk/.../watch-out-for-this-email-scam-says-ne-accommodation-provider-a721
 And my suspicions were confirmed!

Sadly for tourism, I am reluctant to take bookings by email from abroad, and always decline a deposit when I do.  As yet, I have taken no bogus bookings.  I would also feel sad for any small business that falls for a scam, easy to do now that it is the low season and businesses would appreciate the income.

I have not heard of or been warned by any source of this fraud activity and thought it might be wise to circulate some sort of info in the email circular you distribute on a regular basis.

Hope you can give this matter your attention and bring it to the attention of other businesses,

Regards
Wendy Breeds
Old Mill House

So, if you receive anything like this that you think other tourism businesses should be aware of, let us know. CL