Opportunity to promote tourism being missed

MORE needs to be done to promote Bridgend’s tourism on the local authority website, a councillor has said.

Speaking at a recent council meeting, Councillor Carolyn Webster said there needed to be a “huge button” on Bridgend County Borough Council’s (BCBC) homepage to inform people about what was going on.

She said: “The website has a fantastic new front page which is so accessible but there should be a huge button on here for tourism.

“Our tourism department has shrunk – tourism should have its own page.

“People want to come to Bridgend to have a look and the first place they’re going to look is the borough council website for that information. There was recently a world-class jet ski event in Porthcawl and there was nothing that came out from BCBC on it.

“There’s also an opportunity for revenue generation in terms of advertising.”

Cllr Norah Clarke added: “I recently went to a presentation on the Glamorgan Heritage Coast and I cannot tell you how enthusiastic the Vale of Glamorgan council were – the things that they’re doing in the Vale made me feel quite ill because it’s what we’re not doing here.”

Head of performance and partnership services Martin Morgans, who presented a report to councillors at the corporate overview and scrutiny committee on September 26, said the tourism section was “a missing link” from the website.

He said: “With the new website there was too much to do at once so we are retrospectively looking at what we can do and tourism is one of the areas we are looking at now.”

The new website was launched April. in