Don’t forget Fairlynch Museum when you visit Britain!


VisitBritain is the national tourism agency, responsible for marketing Britain worldwide and developing Britain’s visitor economy, I read on its website at http://www.visitbritain.org/   

A non-departmental public body, funded by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, it works with partners in the UK and overseas to ensure that Britain is marketed in an inspirational and relevant way around the world.

So I was naturally curious about a glaring omission on VisitBritain’s Jurassic coast itinerary at http://www.visitbritain.com/en/Jurassic-Coast-walking-itinerary/

Exmouth and Sidmouth Museums are mentioned, but no Fairlynch Museum! Actually, the website as it stands seems likely to encourage visitors to give Budleigh Salterton a miss altogether. The two attractions listed for our town are the World of Country Life and Bicton Park Botanical Gardens, neither of which are exactly in Budleigh Salterton itself.

That got me thinking about the way in which Budleigh Salterton must surely have been attracting more visitors in recent years.  Well, we’re not exactly one of the South-West’s tourist hotspots. But there has been progress since I was told in 2009 by one of the town’s elderly residents that he and his wife had been induced to move here ten years previously because they’d been told that it was not a tourist town, and catered rather for the residents.

“We have found this to be the case, and have much enjoyed its quiet atmosphere,” he wrote. “There are plenty of nearby tourist resorts for those who seek them.”

And now Budleigh Salterton seems to be a town of festivals. Music, Literature, Jazz... they’ve all taken root here.  Science may yet succeed, while Sport took off in a blaze of publicity with the first Active Budleigh festival http://www.activebudleigh.co.uk/ in 2012. As for the demoscene you can read all about that at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/satans-in-budleigh-saltertons-public.html  And then there’s Budstock.

 
The latest on the festival scene is the Budleigh Salterton Food and Drink Festival to take place this year from 11-13 October. More details coming soon, they say at http://www.budleighinbusiness.org.uk/

As for Fairlynch Museum we are now ranked second out of five local attractions by
TripAdvisor according to the latest information at http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g616260-d3454400-Reviews-Fairlynch_Museum_and_Arts_Centre-Budleigh_Salterton_Devon_England.html#REVIEWS

VisitBritain tell me that a member of their team will get back to me next week. I’ll keep you posted.

 

 

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