English Tourism Week

We're in full on English Tourism Week mode here in Eastbourne, taking part in the country's first ever week that's all about celebrating wonderful English destinations and recognising what an important year of tourism we have coming up in 2012.

English Tourism Week started on Saturday and runs until Sunday 18 March and we have lots of different celebrations and activities going on in Eastbourne!

Tomorrow is our second VisitEastbourne Tweetup, organised this time to coincide with English Tourism Week and we'd love for businesses and individuals to come along between 4pm and 7.30pm tomorrow for a free networking opportunity and the chance to share feedback on the town too. We'll be asking what you'd like to see in the town as well as asking you to tell us what you love most about Eastbourne in our English Tourism Week competition, but more about that later... We'll also be using it to speak to those of you who expressed interest in becoming a virtual greeter. So, if you would like the chance to meet other Eastbourne tweeters in a relaxing setting, come along tomorrow! 

What do you love most about Eastbourne? Tell us this week for your chance to win £20 to spend in Le Loup, a lovely boutique style store in the Grand Hotel Buildings Shopping Parade. To enter either call into the Tourist Information Centre (25% off Olympic and Diamond Jubilee souvenirs this week too!) and drop your entry in, complete our online form telling us what you love most, or come along and share your favourite aspect of the town at our tweetup tomorrow.

English Tourism Week is a great excuse to indulge in sweet treats and classic English recipes too! We've teamed up with The Really Scrumptious Cake Company in Eastbourne to offer a special edition box of cupcakes to celebrate English Tourism Week. Enjoy strawberries and cream, Victoria sponge, apple crumble and bakewell tart! Personally, I'd recommend the apple crumble - yum!

TV viewers can't have missed the fantastic new VisitEngland ads promoting the GREAT 2012 Offers! We're excited to be taking part in this awesome campaign and have already got plenty of brilliant 20.12% off or better offers on the campaign website.

If you enjoy taking photos on the go then check out the new Smartphone Photography Competition launched this week by Viewpoint Art Gallery. We're pleased to be supporting the competition, particularly the Eastbourne category, and can't wait to see the entries! Good luck and happy snapping!

Emma

Busy week for the Eastbourne Conference Sales Team

We have had a great week! We love what we do, so every week is a good week (well usually!) but this past week has been exceptional for the two of us in the Conference Sales Team. We have dealt with all the usual things such as answering enquiries about the Devonshire Park Centre, checking our diary for dates, putting several room hire proposals together and making quite a few sales calls but we've also done some extra things too!

It started with us attending a networking event at the York House Hotel on Tuesday. We met some great people, some we knew already as well as some new faces and managed to spread the word about the Eastbourne Conference Bureau and what we're all about.

Wednesday we were up early and on the 6.57 train to London for a day's training on 'Maximising Your Showrounds'. Between us we've done hundreds of showrounds and, due to our venue finding function, have also seen first hand how many of our Eastbourne venues do it. Therefore, we already have a fair amount of experience but felt there is always something new to learn. We had a great day as it confirmed that a lot of what we already do is best practice but we certainly picked up a lot of useful extra tips, so we felt completely invigorated and keen to put our new found skills into practice!

Thursday was the day of our first Tweetup, organised in partnership with our Visit Eastbourne and Convex Leisure colleagues. We had around 40 fellow tweeters come along to the Devonshire Park Centre and the room was absolutely buzzing with lots of Twitter talk, business deals being discussed as well as everyone just being social and getting to know each other better.

Then finally Friday was the day we got to put our new showround training into practice. We had spotted a potential client on Twitter, made contact, managed to generate interest in the Devonshire Park Centre as a possible venue for some of their events and Friday was the day they were coming to Eastbourne for the first time. It went really well and the training obviously paid off because they commented that it was one of the best showrounds they'd ever had. They said it was really well organised and before they left they asked us to check our diary for three potential dates in 2013, each for around 800 delegates! A great result!

Here's looking forward to this week now!

Jenny
Conference Sales

Thanks for your top tips at our first VisitEastbourne Tweetup!

Well last night we held our very first VisitEastbourne tweetup and I have to say, I think it went pretty well. If our sign-in sheet adds up correctly then it looks like we had 43 tweeps attend in total - fantastic! It was great to see some new faces and bring together a different network of people.

I have to thank Jenny @ConferenceEB for her help in arranging it and sorting out the venue, as well as Callum @ConvexLeisure who provided some delicious canapes and wine!

A board set up by @EastbourneCan asking what people would like to see in Eastbourne certainly seemed to attract quite a bit of interest and I'll be watching their blog with interest to see what comments they got.

Thanks for everyone's feedback on yesterday's tweetup - it's really useful to know what you thought and I think we'll definitely look to organise another VisitEastbourne tweetup in the new year.

Yesterday was also a chance for us to hear your top twitter tips. I'm forever reading different articles on good protocol for tweeting, best times to tweet, best tone to tweet etc. but it was really interesting to hear your twitter tips, which many of you posted at the event. So, here it is - a guide to twitter by Eastbourne tweeters...

@bamb_bamb - Tweet pics of your work but write about life

@eastsussexmusic - Make the story interesting and amusing (if you can)

@stephdoesrunnin - Tweet as if you're only talking to one person, others can be more likely to respond

@bournebreaks - Don't just try and sell!

@laptop_station - Retweet to help promote others, they will/should return the favour!

@David_Ruddle - Be consistent. Don't try and sell.

@Stella_Holman - Networking on twitter. Be interested in the other person.

@eccn_news - Have a sense of humour and always tweet like a human. (by the way, I can definitely vouch that @eccn_news had a great sense of humour!)

@121fs - Have a web browser favourites folder titled 'twitter'. Add in your links to twitter, bufferapp, Sky News, BBC News etc... Open all links early in the morning and load up your buffer app with stories to save you doing it during the day. Saves me hours!

@BlinkTankTweets - Create separate accounts for different sections of your business and follow relevant people.
@hey_tc - If you tweet a link always include a few of your own words.

And we have one more tip that we need claiming as the person forgot to label them with their twitter name!

Be yourself - even if you're a business, people will follow you anyway.

So there it is - a guide to twitter by you! Let me know what you think of these tips by sending us a tweet @VisitEastbourne and if you didn't contribute then tweet us your tip! Plus make sure you follow us to find out who has won the pair of tickets to Beyond the Barricade at the Congress Theatre on 9 December!

Thanks again to everyone for coming and here's to the next!

Emma

Promotions and E-Marketing Officer