please empty your brain below
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Croydon is -3 too, so arguably as bad as Harrow. Have they been closing museums and libraries too?
I think Hackney should be +4 (zero to four) which is just as remarkable in the opposite direction.
I wonder if a good tourist-facing website draws additional visitors. Almost impossible to measure, I expect.
Andrew | 11.07.13 - 7:34 a.m. | #
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I doubt that many tourists think "ooh, I must go out in Haringey/Bexley/Merton, I wonder what tourist attractions there are?"
But a good leisure/heritage website does enable a borough to promote its events/attractions to residents, which has surely got to be a good idea.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 11.07.13 - 7:44 a.m. | #
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I'd rather my council tax not to be squandered by making a tourist site for my borough, as that is never going to help my life, My borough (Southwark) is actually quite selective, with the touristy zone on that thin strip of land by the Thames between Tower Bridge and Hatfields. Everywhere else is residential (I'd love to see tourists enjoy a day out in Peckham) - so why have a tourist site when Visit London and travel agent's brochures make a perfectly acceptable substitute?
Plymouth, Brighton, and Newcastle NEED to have a tourism site, so maybe the Mayor's site could have one too, but otherwise its essentially pointless as Mr American Tourist is not going to be browsing 33 borough's websites to find whether they can or cannot go to the Bollywood Cinema in Harrow.
Rotherhithe | 11.07.13 - 7:59 a.m. | #
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It's not just foreign tourists who need to know where to go in London, those of us who live here also need to make the most of our city. And that shouldn't just mean the same old list of big-hitter attractions in the centre of town.
As for Visit London (and indeed Time Out online), they're surprisingly awful for discovering what's going on across London. But that's a whole different post...
diamond geezer | Homepage | 11.07.13 - 8:10 a.m. | #
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There is nothing worth visiting in Southwark except for a narrow band by the river? Shame; even more so that the borough council seems to share your lack of civic pride. Still, if you don't want the local facilities and infrastructure, goods and sevices, and jobs, that tourism can support...
Presumably the likes of Westminster and (it now seems) Greenwich think visitors will roll in anyway. I wonder why Brighton, Plymouth, etc (and the City of London, and Richmod) take a different view.
Andrew | 11.07.13 - 8:21 a.m. | #
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Greenwich's visitor accommodation and attraction finder is just bizarre. How many visitors know what the postcode might be? A map of the borough showing attractions and hotels (even, whisper, some hotels over the boundary on the Isle of Dogs or the Lewisham bit of Blackheath) would be a lot more useful.
Greenwich's default position in the 1970s and 1980s was that the centre of the universe was Woolwich and Plumstead and that those fancy buildings at the western end of the borough were faintly embarrassing. I do hope it's not gone back to that.
Alan Burkitt-Gray | 11.07.13 - 10:01 a.m. | #
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Aah, you do get a map of hotels if you type in, for example, SE3 -- but it would be so much better if a map is what you got first time round. My map showed hotels within three miles of SE3, including north and west of the borough. The map wouldn't be that much bigger if it automatically showed all hotels in and around the borough, and related them to attractions.
Alan Burkitt-Gray | 11.07.13 - 10:05 a.m. | #
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Shame about Harrow as there is a wealth of things to do here. I moved into the borough a year ago and at the library picked up 5 full colour booklets of mini-exploration walks to do with kids (although they're just as interesting to do on your own) pointing out interesting facts and things to look out for in the different areas of the borough featured (Stanmore, Pinner, Grimsdyke, Hatch End & Harrow Hill).
Plus the library also holds panphlets on each of the 5 Nature reserves the borough maintains, with walking trails, information on flora & fauna etc. How hard would it be to put PDFs online and attract others to the area.
Like you say London residents want to know what's outside of the main tourist attractions.
CornishCockney | 11.07.13 - 10:58 a.m. | #
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Greenwich also proudly proclaims that you can "Discover our world-famous attractions and see their Olympic opening hours"
Why? Will they have different opening hours in 2016?
The hotel finder asks for "your postcode". But unless I put in a postcode corresponding to an address in the borough, it gives a nil return. And if I do have a postcode in the borough, why would I need a hotel?
| 11.07.13 - 12:33 p.m. | #
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It seems to me that the underlying problem is not the tourism websites of London boroughs. It is the sheer artificiality of those boroughs themselves.
Of course Brighton needs to attract tourists. Brighton is a well-defined place. And London has a similar need. But the totally-artificial bits into which London is divided are not places at all. Camden has no need to compete with Islington for tourists. Tourists do not care. They are in London.
Yes, it would be good if someone living in, say, Southgate, could find out about things near to them. But such things are just as likely to be over the "border" in Haringey or Barnet as in the "home" borough of Enfield. Artifical lines on a map.
Malcolm | 11.07.13 - 1:09 p.m. | #
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"ooh, I must go out in Haringey/Bexley/Merton"
Merton is, of course, home to Wimbledon and its extensive tennis museum. But not everyone knows that because we're not the London Borough of Wimbledon (thank goodness)
As you can see from the Merton Council website, we also have an amazing attraction: The Community Toilet Scheme!
http://www.merton.gov.uk/community-living/communitytoiletscheme.htm
Why not take the Community Toilet Tour, visiting such places as Haydon's Cafe, the Kings Arms and Merton Civic Centre (Merton Link)? The perfect day out for all the family!
Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 11.07.13 - 2:43 p.m. | #
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Bit unfair to knock Newham back because they haven't got the Olympics this year - can't have it again.
Their website is still good and covers a lot to do in Newham.
Agent Z | 11.07.13 - 10:02 p.m. | #
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Newham's website offering (about Newham, not about the Olympics) used to be better. They've restructured things, and removed previous content (such as three self-guided walk podcasts). It's still 3*-good, but it's not what it was.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 11.07.13 - 10:10 p.m. | #
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I suspect the postcode searches referred to above are part of a frustrating trend towards 'personalised' content which in fact is akin to dumbing down. It's all bells and whistles technology but forgetting that in many cases all that's needed is a simple well-drawn cartographic map with some annotations, ideally in PDF format where you can see everything at a glance. If you're reduced to radius searches on narrow selection criteria you're very likely to miss something unexpected and you're focussing very much on your own pre-selected interests and not widening your experience.
| 11.07.13 - 10:23 p.m. | #
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There is this fledgling site specifically referencing Southwark - not linked from the official website though
http://www.travelactivesouthwark.org.uk/Work in progress as they say. Local government is a strange beast.
Roger Stocker | 16.07.13 - 10:46 a.m. | #
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