LBTB at Houses of Parliament
Interest in celebrating Lancashire Day is on the rise and this year Lancashire and Blackpool Tourist Board (LBTB) used social media and visitlancashire.com in the week up to the 27th November, to build anticipation and interest amongst fans and followers over what LBTB called ‘Lancashire Week’. Imagine our delight when ‘Happy Lancashire Day’ was trending on Twitter on Lancashire Day morning.
During the week, recent winners of the Lancashire and Blackpool Tourism Awards were hailed ‘Pride of Lancashire’ with their achievements highlighted through tweets and postings, as they prepare to go forward to the national VisitEngland Awards for Excellence 2012. Visitor Information Centres across the county marked the week with events and displays, and Lancaster and Morecambe VIC offered ‘A Taste of Lancashire’ . Local districts celebrating Lancashire Day over the weekend of 26/27th November were included on visitlancashire’s dedicated Lancashire Day page which received 3,200 unique visits in the last month (with 700 of these on 27th November) .
On the day itself colleagues at the tourist board began tweeting and retweeting in the early hours, resulting in over 250 interactions on the day via social media outlets. ‘Happy Lancashire Day’ was retweeted 90 times, with the ripple effect of this activity reaching many more thousands of followers. Well known Lancashire tweeters on the day included Nigel Haworth, Paul Heathcote, Josie Prenger, Thwaites, The Hot Pots, Lancashire County Cricket Club and BBC Lancashire.
On Monday 28th November Lancashire MP Eric Ollerenshaw OBE hosted an event to raise awareness of Lancashire Day and Lancashire produce amongst fellow MPs at the Houses of Parliament. LBTB’s Mike Wilkinson and Tony Openshaw also attended, to represent tourism businesses and the industry’s £3billion contribution to the local economy.
LBTB has over 10,000 followers/fans across social networks, which has doubled over the last 12 months.