Who's Who in Tourism

Visit County Durham

A partnership organisation

Visit County Durham is a partnership organisation. Tourism touches many different areas of life and business, so Visit County Durham works alongside a wide range of organisations and partners to help grow and develop our visitor industry.

Services

Visit County Durham's aspiration is to help businesses build a thriving, quality destination, so their services revolve around the following six key areas.

• Business support
• Information services
• Marketing
• Product development
• Visitor experience
• Workforce development

Business support

Visit County Durham helps businesses improve business performance and become more profitable. The support can range from business planning and human resources advice, to accessing training, applying for grants, finding investment capital and helping businesses gain accreditation or a quality marks.
For more information:
Margaret Statham, Business Support Executive
Tel: 0191 383 7422 margaret.statham@visitcountydurham.org

Information services

Visitors need information to get the most out of their visit both at the planning stage and whilst they are here. Visit County Durham helps the visitor directly, through guides and websites, and indirectly by supporting Tourist Information Centres, tour guides and other commercial information providers. Their aim is to ensure that all visitor information is consistently high quality and inspirational.

Marketing

The key aim of all Visit County Durham's marketing is to continue to raise the profile of County Durham as a world-class destination and to encourage visitors to explore fully what the whole county has to offer. They use PR, direct marketing and media campaigns to raise awareness with both consumers and commercial customers - the tour operators and group travel operators, at home and abroad, who bring visitors to our region.
To find out more contact:
Sarah Burn, Senior Marketing Executive
Tel: 0191 383 7421 sarah.burn@visitcountydurham.org  

Product development

Collectively, the diversity of the places to stay, things to see and do and the experience to be had are what attracts visitors. Visit County Durham works to encourage investment into County Durham's tourism product both through helping to raise the quality of existing businesses and also through attracting new capital projects. They also encourage the development of specialist (niche) offerings: businesses geared to walkers and cyclists, to international visitors, to those seeking rest and relaxation, and so on.

Visitor experience

The experience that visitors have when they visit a destination must meet their expectations or they won't return or recommend to others. Visit County Durham works with partners to ensure the infrastructure is strong, for example good signage, clean streets, available car parks and toilet facilities etc, and to foster a warm welcome for visitors from businesses and the public.

Workforce development

Tourism, more than any other business sector, is a customer service industry. The experience customers have at the hands of businesses and staff has a huge impact on how good their overall holiday experience is. Visit County Durham works with employers to meet their training and skills needs, with training and skills providers to ensure that the programs they run meet employers' needs and they participate in careers events and training activities.

To visit the Visit County Durham website click here:
www.tourismnortheast.co.uk/visit-county-durham

To visit the Visit County Durham consumer website, click here:
www.visitcountydurham.com

Contacts

 For the latest Visit County Durham contacts, please click here.