Hats off to boosting our tourism industry (From Worcester News)

Hats off to boosting our tourism industry

12:00pm Sunday 14th March 2010 in

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A PROGRAMME of training courses to boost Worcestershire’s business tourism and events skills and to mark this year’s British tourism week has been launched by conference-worcestershire.

British tourism week, which starts today, aims to raise local, regional, national and international awareness of the size, value and importance of Britain’s £114 billion visitor economy.

Tourism contributes more than £422 million to Worcestershire’s economy and this year, conference-worcestershire is holding a programme of training courses for its 49 member venues and events service providers. It will focus on enhancing customer experience, retaining events bookings and attracting even more business tourism to the county.

The organisation, which offers a free venue finding service and helps businesses to organise a variety of corporate events in the county, launched the training programme with a mystery shopper exercise which was designed to assess sales techniques and call handling skills.

This was followed up with an enquiry handling training course, focusing on staff development, enquiry handling and conversion into bookings.

Courses on enhancing customer experience, effective communication and networking, online marketing and how to sell your venue or service have been organised as part of the programme.

Emma Robinson, of conference-worcestershire, said: “British tourism week is a key event in terms of highlighting the often under-valued contribution that tourism makes to the British economy, as well as celebrating the role of all the businesses within the industry that make it so valuable.

“It is worth remembering that tourism contributes more than £422 million to Worcestershire’s economy and if we are to further develop this, our venues need to make the most of all the opportunities available to them. Worcestershire has a variety of venues and events service providers which are already offering high-quality services.

“This programme of training courses will build on and enhance these skills to make sure members are in the strongest position to attract new customers and keep existing ones coming back for more.”

Call conference-worcestershire on 01905 766895 or visit conference-worcester shire.org.uk for details.