Beaulieu takes Marketing in Tourism Gold Award for exhibition of James Bond cars
Beaulieu National Motor Museum has won this year’s Marketing in Tourism Gold Award, a scheme jointly devised by the English Tourism Council (ETC) and Marketing Week.
The award is part of the Safeway Excellence in England Awards, which are run by the ETC, and was presented this week in a ceremony at the Royal Opera House. The event also saw the Duke of York collect a special award on behalf of the Queen, in recognition of her contribution to tourism over the 50 years of her reign.
Beaulieu won the award for an exhibition featuring cars from the James Bond movies, which sucessfully reversed years of declining visitor numbers during the Nineties. Linking the Beaulieu brand to James Bond helped rejuvenate the museum’s image and visitor numbers increased by 15 per cent – to almost 350,000 – in 2001.
Marketing Week editor Stuart Smith says: “The quality of this submission demonstrates how an outstanding heritage site is managing to keep abreast of the times be re-inventing itself.”
Chairman of the judges panel David Stanbridge called the James Bond exhibition “a brilliant piece of lateral thinking to rejuvenate a classic brand”.
Marketing in Tourism Silver Awards went to the Leisure Pass Group and to Monkhouse Hill Cottages. Other winners included Scarborough – voted “most improved resort” – London’s Science Museum and the World of Glass in St Helens, Merseyside.
