Earlier this month a delegation representing Visit Cornwall travelled to Finistère in Brittany to strengthen their partnership with Finistère Tourisme – a counterpart tourism development agency – and to attract new, high spending overseas visitors.
The visit started with a meeting at Brittany Ferries HQ in Roscoff, to showcase Cornwall as a tourism destination among the French and German markets. Over the summer, the ferry company is proposing one-day car tours in Cornwall. This type of package works well for the company but there are issues with a lack of accommodation availability for groups and longer stays. Over the next few months, Visit Cornwall will help them identify additional accommodation providers in Cornwall and provide some new visual content for the Brittany Ferries website and on board information points.
During a 3-day programme of visits and meetings, Visit Cornwall was presented with local initiatives to develop the promotion of religious and maritime heritage. At the Abbey of Landevennec – monastery ruins from the late 5th century – they are testing a new approach to site interpretation with some potential joint opportunities with Cornwall for developing augmented reality applications that can revive historical buildings.
A meeting with the Observatory on maritime heritage of the University of Western Brittany demonstrated their integrated approach to preserving and promoting elements of maritime heritage (docks, boats, fishermen communities, chapels, etc) whilst enabling economic development in historical harbours.
Finistère Tourisme shared its knowledge of developing “tourism routes” to promote heritage, specifically heritage harbours, lighthouses, painters and churchyards. It is focusing on awareness and understanding of the offer to reinforce its visibility among visitors – selecting the most iconic and impressive sites; consistent signage along the trail; site interpretation; targeted marketing.
Finistère Tourisme and Visit Cornwall have agreed to join their expertise to better promote and market their complementary maritime and cultural tourism offers. The two tourism development agencies will share content and data from their digital and marketing tools; jointly work on the promotion of the high-end tourism offer; and look at European calls for proposals supporting international projects in the sector.
Cornwall Council cabinet member for economy and culture Julian German said: “I am convinced that Cornwall and Finistère can learn from one another. In Cornwall we can learn how to better promote cultural tourism trails which attract high value visitors and will have a positive benefit for our economy and those working tourism. I look forward to joint projects being developed for the benefit of one and all.”
