Tours of the Parish Church
This has been a very difficult year for tourism generally.
In January the Kings Head Hotel opposite the church closed and a regular number of visitors each week was denied to us.
In July/August the floods affecting Gloucester, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury sent out the message that the Cotswolds were closed and this untrue statement affected tourism numbers, and although they increased in September and October the decline continued towards the end of the year. Derek Barnard and I carried out 48 advertised tours taking round 209 people (average 4.27 people per tour) compared with 2006 - 66 tours for 354 (average 5.36 people per tour).
There were 10 pre-booked tours for 260 people also undertaken (2006: 10 for 264 people). Heritage Day tours were less well attended due to having to close the Church at 3 pm although there was considerable interest in ascending the tower when 180 people went up.
Despite the overall drop in visitors, the tourist boxes, at around £45,000, only showed a drop of approximately £4000 on the previous year, a decrease of 8.2%. This is creditable in the circumstances and reflects well on the efforts of the Church Stewards who welcome and talk to visitors. It is interesting to note the Trio campaign budget relies on our visitors’ boxes providing £865 per week (£45,000 per annum) to balance the Church accounts indicating the importance of Tourism to the Parish.
Alas, 2008 has not started well. There are fewer tourists about and as we go to press there is talk of recession and with the onset of Church re-organisation after Easter fewer visitors will come top the church with a dramatic downturn in their contributions to Parish finances.
John Lawrence
|
