Tourism in Herne Bay

I think it was a mistake to remove Herne Bay's dedicated Visitor Information Centre. Tourism caused our town to be built in the first place, and has been the mainstay of our micro-economy for decades. A thriving local tourism industry will be a more effective engine of regeneration than a new supermarket.

I was pottering around Canterbury in mid-May and popped into their Information Centre out of curiousity. This was when I found the solitary sheet of A4 promoting Herne Bay - click the little version on the left to see a more legible version. I was not impressed. When I got back to Herne Bay, I had a look at the tourist information locations, and wasn't encouraged. So I started harrumphing to the local rags...

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Secret Festival?

It appears that leaflets for our imminent and marvellous Festival were accidentally printed on thin sheets of Unobtainium. Our own dedicated Tourist Information Service seems to be rationing them. Presumably they've been cleaned out by people swarming to a quiet corner of the off-the-main-drag Council Offices.

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Gale's View: Visitor Information Centre (part 2)

Those that have sought to present interim arrangements as Canterbury Council's solution to tourist information in Herne Bay are at best disingenuous and at worst downright dishonest. To photograph the leaflet stand in the Council offices and to try to present this as the replacement for the bandstand shop is idiotic as even the meanest of intelligences must be fully aware that the Council has proposed that the new facilities will be rolled out in time for the start of the tourist season at Easter and will be further enhanced thereafter.

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Gale's View: Visitor Information Centre

I have long felt that the City Fathers have taken a metro-centric "within the City Walls" view of the District at the expense of the majority of the population that live not in the City centre but on the coastal strip. That said, I regard with some disdain the bandwagon that has been set rolling in an endeavour to preserve the Tourist Information Centre in its present form.

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The bay's information services get a boost

Information services for Herne Bay's visitors and residents were improved last week when the town's two visitor information centres combined into one, at the Bandstand. By closing the William Street centre and concentrating its resources on one centre, at the Bandstand, the city council can provide a much higher standard of service.

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