The meeting, which coincided with British Tourism Week 2009, was organised by the Winchester Museum and included representatives from the cathedral and Intech science centre at Morn Hill.
Mr Brine, who is the prospective Conservative MP for Winchester was given a tour of the museum before discussing the challenges facing city tourism and hearing how the recession is affecting some of the city’s key tourist sites.
He said; “Winchester has it all and clearly we are always going to attract large numbers of tourists to the city but we are not immune from the downturn in the economy and we have to remember other cities such as Salisbury, Bath and Chichester are very much our competitors. I was pleased to see inside the museum again and to hear of the excellent work Sher Kent and her team are doing to attract large numbers of Winchester residents and city visitors.
“It was fascinating to hear about the success of the cathedral’s Christmas market and their plans for 2009 but I was astonished to learn how few people are actually working on what has become an absolutely central pillar of Winchester’s success as a destination of choice during the critical Christmas period. The Intech Science Centre is, in many ways, a hidden gem within the Winchester tourism scene and I can see immediately we have a great deal of work to do to link Intech much better to the city centre attractions.
“Above all I take away from meeting a clear message that Winchester is competing with destinations in the area that have every bit as much to offer as we do and have their eye on our tourists backed by much better resourced tourist operations.”
Steve Brine met with Sher Kent, Museum Services Manager at Winchester Council responsible for the Winchester Museum, Charlotte Barnaville from the Marketing office at Winchester Cathedral and Marketing Manager at Intech, Andy Lane. They are pictured above.
Elsewhere on this Steve Brine.com ...
Download a high res version of this picture here.