New museum for London

Artist's impression the new Postal Museum in London

A new visitor attraction and museum for London has taken a step forward with the announcement that The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) has received planning approval from the London Borough of Camden for its new home at Calthorpe House, near Mount Pleasant sorting office.

The new Postal Museum will provide access to the BPMA’s collections of 400 years of postal, social and design history, including photographs, posters, vehicles, pillar boxes, employment records of millions of people and a world-class stamp collection.

The BPMA will be able to exhibit objects from its museum collection, which is currently held in storage. The new state-of-the-art premises will also include educational facilities for visiting schools, digitisation facilities and a purpose built Archive repository, built to modern environmental and security standards.

New sustainability initiative by major museum & gallery

Without compromising its artistic and cultural integrity and reflecting the need for continuing sustainability, the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, one of the Midland's flagship cultural and heritage venues has launched Herbert Touring. The new initiative brings high quality exhibitions to other venues in the heritage sector, with exhibitions curated by their experienced creative team.

The Herbert prides itself on the broad range of its exhibitions programme and will bring this variety to its touring portfolio. Exhibitions are available to museums with subjects as diverse as the myths surrounding ancient Egypt, to a stark portrayal of canal culture in the 1950s, to the hottest up and coming street artists.

Herbert Touring has been launched with the support of the Arts Council and as pressure continues on museum budgets, the importance of this kind of entrepreneurial activity is likley to become of increasing importance.

See more on Herbert Touring here  

Naseby Battlefield Project

Naseby Battlefield Project, a group on Flickr.

The Naseby Battlefield Project aims to enhance visitor facilities at Naseby battlefield.

More on the Naseby Battlefield Project and Attract's role here here

Croome Court

The Red Wing at Croome

Nick Joyce Architects LLP, one of our clients has won the contract for conserving and restoring the main fabric of the Red Wing Wing at Croome the National Trust property in Worcestershire. We are working with them and the NT on the best way to explain to visitors what is going on over the course of the contract using all the interpretive techniques you can think of from boards to social media. See Croome on Facebook

‘PD’ Reunion for wartime Sunderland pilots

‘PD’ Reunion for wartime Sunderland pilots, a photo by Boxbrownie3 on Flickr.

Attract client - The Flying Boat Centre at Pembroke Dock - goes from strength to strength with growing visitor numbers of all ages, based on clever use of a small site, loyal volunteers, social media and a brilliant and committed management and admin team supported by an enthusiastic board of trustees.

Who do I trust?

Just who can I rely on for travel information?

One of the most vexing challenges for the marketers of travel services is that of addressing a fundamental dilemma in contemporary marketing practice: it has become more difficult to influence prospective customers as it has become easier to reach them, says Peter Yesawich, head of the Ypartnership. Personal recommendations have the most credibility while social media have the least, a new analysis reports.

“The question of source credibility is therefore one of great interest to marketers of travel services, particularly as it relates to the degree of influence consumers ascribe to the kaleidoscope of information now available on destinations and/or specific travel service suppliers,” Yesawich says. “And given the explosive growth in the number of sources from which consumers can now sample commentary, it’s important to understand they ascribe far greater confidence to the information they receive from some sources than others.”

This “Credibility Continuum,” as measured in the Ypartnership/Harrison Group 2010 Portrait Of American Travelers, stretches from the personal testimonials of friends and family members (the most credible) to the content found on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (the least credible).

 Source

Visitor numbers continue upwards

January inbound figures from VisitBritain show an 11% increase in both volume (2.27 million visits) and value (a spend of £1.125bn) over January 2011. Holidays and VFR trips were up compared with a year ago, and business travel was down. North America remains a weak market at the moment for inbound visits - let's hope the GREAT campaign works its magic across the Atlantic

More here at Visit Britain