UK TOURISM

• Within the UK, tourism has to start by visiting the NATIONAL PARKS - a page of stuff here for you, including maps and details on all the parks. This is an area which has increased in recent years.
• Try the ASSOCIATION OF NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITIES.
• Most National Parks and areas have a free paper of some kind. I've got several copies of the PEAK DISTRICT one.
• There's a simple Virtual tour of CASTLETON here. This is part of the newly improved INTERNET GEOGRAPHY. This has been redesigned and its content now makes it a TOP TEN site.
• Individual cities often have their own sites: try a search using GOOGLE. (While you're at it, I recommend downloading the Google toolbar - it doesn't take too long and speeds up those searches)
• Tourism is also currently recovering from the effects of the foot and mouth outbreak: check the news archives for more, or a site called OPEN BRITAIN. Theme parks such as ALTON TOWERS have their own site, and you can do an information gathering exercise, or visit the NATIONAL TRUST site. A place which has to be worth visiting is the new EDEN PROJECT. This has links to related ecological themes.
• Going to LONDON, or doing a project: try VIRTUAL LONDON. 
• Go to UK GUIDE for regional information.
• If you're doing a project on tourism in the Lake District, there's an excellent school field trip site HERE which has a whole range of digital camera photographs looking at Bowness on Windermere as a tourist HONEYPOT site. This is an excellent part of an excellent site which has been recommended elsewhere on GEOGRAPHYPAGES. Recommended. There are other images sets too.
• VISITBRITAIN is all set up to try to get people back to Britain for their holidays. Has information about the whole country, and a chance to do a virtual tour of the country.
• There's also this .INFO site (first one I've come across) called YOUR COUNTRYSIDE which has lots of Information (not surprisingly) on the UK Countryside. Details on Access, Events and Attractions.
• For details on travel statistics, such as visitor numbers, visit STARUK. Recommended.
• The BRITISH AIRPORTS AUTHORITY has important information for those investigating air transport.
• Going on the beach in the UK ? Make sure that it is a clean one, or as clean as it can be. How do you know whether you can trust the sand not to have broken glass or doggy doo in it, or that the water won't give you an upset stomach. There are several sites which give you useful information about beach safety and cleanliness. They include:

 SEASIDE AWARDS

 the GOOD BEACH GUIDE

BEACH WIZARD

 the BLUE FLAG CAMPAIGN

• The ASSOCIATION OF LEADING VISITOR ATTRACTIONS has a website. This information is updated each year. For 2004, attractions like the EDEN project are apparently attracting less visitors, but they're still doing very well. Blackpool Pleasure Beach also had fewer visitors in 2003 despite the scorching summer weather.
• Fancy walking: check out RIGHTS OF WAY here.
• For detailed information, go to GEOPROJECTS.CO.UK

TIP: When going to a new place, or even from time to time in the place where you live, go to the Tourist Information Centre, and see what freebies, or low price leaflets and documents they have on offer.

• How about NORTHERN IRELAND as a destination ? Giant's Causeway isn't the only thing on offer.

One of the destinations that people head for in large numbers are THEME PARKS. Most of them now have websites too: Visit the following:

• Fancy going for a walk ? Why not go to WALKINGWORLD to see what they have on offer. Take a look at Walk 134 for example: a walk along the Norfolk coast. It's rather a good one - guess who contributed it...why not download the walk - if another 40 or so people do it I might even get some royalties....

• LONDON is trying to attract tourists using an advertising campaign TOTALLY LONDON. This includes the VISIT LONDON website and lots of mailings - the home of the official visitor organisation for London. One idea that is beginning to be introduced from the states (and other places) are open air ice rinks.

• There's a good JOURNEY PLANNER at TRANSPORT FOR LONDON which you could use to investigate movements around the city or plan days out. Recently requested a batch of tube maps for a coach trip and they came very promptly.

Why do people go on holiday ?

This is a useful starter activity for the work on tourism. Go through the various types of holiday, and suggest some examples of the various types which relate to the students, or which they could take.

• Relaxation

• Visits to friends and relatives

• Pleasure

• Sport

• Culture

• Health

• Conservation

• Religion

• Heritage

• Education

• Business

Some examples of holidays: could use this as examples or try to fit them in the appropriate place:

Lazing on a beach in Alcudia, Majorca; learning how to paint watercolours in Suffolk; a golfing holiday in Ireland; business trip to Japan; helping to rebuild dry-stone walls in a National Park; a weekend at a health-farm; a trip to Jerusalem; a pilgrimage to Walsingham, Norfolk; Disneyland Paris; a climbing holiday in N. Wales; visiting Paris to see the Louvre; a trip to Stonehenge etc..

Do a survey and see what the students' favourite TYPE of holiday is, ask them to write 100 words on their favourite, or fantasy, holiday destination. Use the Internet to source an image and get them to send a postcard back home. Blank postcards printed on thin card are a useful resource to use.

DEVON

There are many tourist attractions in Devon: LOTS TO DO has lists of some of them. You can also win some FREE TICKETS in a prize draw. A good map of the area and EDUCATION links.

One great place to visit is Lynton and LYNMOUTH: a FLOODING page here. Check out the new LYNMOUTH page of GeographyPages.

Beach management. Click to enlarge.

Devon is at one end of the JURASSIC COAST. Check out the Denys Brunsden edited guide to this stretch of coastline. This is available from 'all good bookshops'.

There are lots of rather good NATIONAL TRUST properties in the area. I recommend the following: A La Ronde (down the rather narrow Summer Lane) and Coleton Fishacre (close to Kingswear and one of the best NT property in my opinion - of the ones I've visited so far...)

There are some good coastal landforms too: at the northern end of Teignmouth is a red outcrop where one can see the Parson and Clerk and Shag Rock stack just off the headland. This is also visible from Exmouth.

Dawlish Warren is one of those classic Geography places which many people will have read about. Approaching it means passing through a lot of caravan sites and tacky souvenir shops, but you then walk through to a National Nature reserve and a classic spit at the mouth of the Exe.

Another great location is Budleigh Salterton beach. This is a pebble strand with many storm ridges; on the day I visited there were 4 or 5 berms at different levels. There was also a dramatic example of the LONGSHORE current in action. My son left his plastic spade next to the surf as he played on the pebbles, and it was snatched away by a rogue wave which then carried it out to sea as he stood their crying at his loss... Fortunately it was later retrieved, having travelled several hundred yards in an easterly direction.

I also observed and filmed (until the battery on my DV camera ran out) various rips and currents operating on the beach.

Also visited Torquay, which is memorably described in the 'Rough Guide':

"....the town has been associated with ...the fictional TV hotelier Basil Fawlty, whose jingoism and injured pride perfectly encapsulates Torquay's forced adaptation to the demands of mass tourism. The Mediterranean myth .... evaporates altogether on a Friday or Saturday night when the streets.... are awash with drink (usually having already passed through the body)..."

Further south in Tintagel is an example of how tourism can hang on one theme. There are at least 50% of the businesses in the village which are named after some sort of Arthurian theme, such as King Arthur's bookshop.

Was recently contacted by Chris, who is behind a newish site called SURFING GENIE

The website aims to get us all visiting UK beaches rather than heading off abroad, and also provides a key resource for those interested in surfing, which is a growing sport in the UK.

Has link to an animated GIF showing the surf height in the Atlantic, and perhaps most useful is a search function which allows you to find a beach to suit your needs within the UK.

There is also a recent addition: the invented venue of PORTHEMMET, which made the news recently.

It was a spoof location. "Emmet" is a slang word for tourists used in Cornwall, which means "ants"... Many places have developed derogatory names for the multitude of tourists who descend on locations in the summer months.

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