Towy Valley Explorer minibus scheme

The Towy Valley Explorer is a fabulous minibus scheme that makes it easy to get to some of Carmarthenshire’s top tourist attractions by public transport. You simply catch a Heart of Wales Line train to Llandeilo and the bus – which you need to pre book – meets you at the station and takes you to either Dinefwr Park, Dryslwyn Castle, Aberglasney Gardens and the National Botanic Garden of Wales. The bus costs just £5 for the day and the bus ticket gets you in to each attraction for a bargain half price. During the day you can shuttle between attractions on the bus and it then gets you back to the station for your homeward journey. It runs every Thursday until Oct 25th, and in June, July and August there is also a service every Tuesday. For further information click onto www.thebusthatmeetsthetrain.co.uk

Need £5000 to invest in your business?

Carmarthenshire Business Support Loan Carmarthenshire County Council can support rate paying businesses through the availability of a business loan for existing and new businesses(as long as you are, or will be) located within Carmarthenshire and are a Small Medium Enterprise status. The Business Support Loan will be no more than 50% of the eligible capital project cost and is a minimum of £1,000 and a Maximum of £10,000 with repayment up to 3 years subject to assessment. For further details contact County Council business devlopment officer Barry Davies on 01267 242331 or BaDavies@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Fact sheet now available for Access Statements

Producing an "access statement" is a mandatory element of the Visit Wales grading process for tourism businesses in Wales. This factsheet has been produced by Visit Wales to help businesses in all sectors of the tourism industry to understand the legisalation laid out in the Equality Act. An access statement will ensure that visitors have reliable information when searching for somewhere to stay. here is the the link to the fact sheet; http://wales.gov.uk/docs/drah/publications/Tourism/100430vwaccesstateng.pdf

Bank Holiday effecting County Council Refuse & recycling collection

Due to next weeks Queen's Jubilee bank holiday, please be aware that there will be some minor changes to the normal Carmarthenshire County Council refuse/recycling collections during the week commecning Monday 4th June 2012. More details can be found on www.carmarthenshire.gov.uk

£75,000 grant ready now for Tourism developments

A new £375,000 grant to aid the development of Carmarthenshire's visitor experience is ready right now for people wanting to receive 50% grant help for projects. Total projects can be worth up to £150,000 with the County Council contributing anything between £25,000 to £75,000. Now that is 75,000 reasons to email Sian or Denise right now at marketing@carmarthenshire.gov.uk So to the details…… applicants are to be private land/property owner or company or a leaseholder/community led group with more than a fifteen year lease with access to 50% match funding. Projects could include something that would make the area more appealing and distinctive and that would attract more tourists to the county such as: • a new tourist attraction or facility (or addition to existing) • sculptures • visitor centres • museum/galleries • something of specific interest that would make the area unique Don’t hang around as bids needed for next month.

New "Green" Tourism Grant available from Carmarthenshire Council

A new £320,000 grant to aid Tourism businesses in Carmarthenshire is inviting proposals right now for projects costing between £5,000 to £10,000 with grant funding up to 80% of the total cost. Sounds good right so read on Projects could include; Energy efficiencies such as ground source heat pumps, solar thermal energy, photovoltaic’s and alternative energy heating systems using biomass/ wood • Biodiversity of the land/garden to encourage wildlife such as kitchen gardens - help towards fenced area with raised beds for planting(holidaymakers would enjoy seeing that the accommodation provider is growing their own vegetables and herbs etc and might want to get involved with gardening while on holidays whilst the planting encourages wildlife into the garden), woodland management by creating nature trails with interpretation boards to describe the wildlife and plant life on the land • Reed bed water systems to purify water • Solar powered showers on campsites – enable the campsite to promote their environmental efficiency and green credentials If you would like further information, email Sian or Denise on marketing@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Carmarthenshire goes multi-lingual with new on-line brochures

With the world getting smaller, the huge county of Carmarthenshire is promoting itself in their own languages to the people of China (卡马森郡), the Netherlands (Carmarthenshire ... zoveel plaatsen en bezienswaardigheden ... zoveel keuzes), Italy (Carmarthenshire è la contea più grande nel Galles meridionale e si estende dalla Baia di Carmarthen nel sud fino ai panorami montuosi del Parco Brecon Beacons occidentale e le montagne della Cambria a nord) and France (Le Carmarthenshire ........ Tellement d’endroits...... tellement de choix) Tourism brochures have been translated into a number of foreign dialects including French and Mandarin as consumers demand and expect information in their own languages at a press of a button. The Mandarin brochures has already been utilised as the County Council met with a tourism delegation from the Yinzhou District in China last week as well as equipping a Welsh Government delegation that is travelling to China this week. Carmarthenshire is the only region to have this information to hand. If you would like to input the translated documents onto your own websites or brochures please email marketing@carmarthenshire.gov.uk and we can email them over in either the designed brochure or word document formats.

Tourism promotional update 11th May 2012

An order has been placed for 10,000 of the “Carmarthenshire beaches, coves and coastline” leaflets to be distributed in tourist information centres in Pembrokeshire from now until the end of October 2012. This work will be carried out by the company SA Marketing. An order has been placed for 104,000 of the “Carmarthenshire Outdoor” leaflets to be distributed door to door in handpicked postcodes in Cardiff, Caerphilly, and the Valleys areas of South East Wales. The work will commence today and finish next week and carried out by the company Front Door Distribution. This will complement the existing on-air radio promotions Carmarthenshire have placed with Real Radio and Capital FM Wales in South East Wales 200 of Carmarthenshire’s most attractive images have now been uploaded to the “Discover Carmarthenshire” flickr account and subsequently shared with other Flickr accounts such as Visit Wales, CADW, BBC, Countryfile and ITV. We would be delighted to see these images used on tourism websites If you would like further information on these promotional activities, please contact Carmarthenshire County Council marketing & tourism section via marketing@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Carmarthenshire "Pub of the Week" campaign

It has perplexed us for some months how to best incorporate and then channel Carmarthenshire’s diverse range of pubs into helping to get 1) visitors to Carmarthenshire & 2) making sure visitors get the experience they desire when they are actually here. From June 2012, the County Council is funding a new promotion with Radio Carmarthenshire and Scarlet FM to identify pubs from across the whole of Carmarthenshire that can become “Carmarthenshire Pub of the Week” which will give them free on-air promotion, inclusion in the pubs / food drink feature on www.discovercarmarthenshire.com and other leaflets and tourism promotions as well as communication to the County Council’s 9,500 employees. Each pub will be reviewed beforehand based on set criteria and their willingness to become proactive parts of the tourism offering in their areas. If you would like further information on this promotion, please contact Huw Parsons via marketing@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Carmarthenshire Coastline reaches Valleys areas

Supplementing the current promotional campaigns on Real Radio and Capital FM Wales targeting the residents of South East Wales from April onwards, Carmarthenshire Council has placed a two page promotional advert in “The Valleys Magazine” which serves 7,000 homes in the Glynneath, Hirwaun, Aberdare & Rhigos areas. The image led advert focus is on the stunning beaches of Carmarthenshire and the availability of the printed and on-line brochures of the beaches and coves brochure. We are only 40 minutes away! If you would like further information, email Sarah Owen on marketing@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Olympic Torch comes to Carmarthenshire in May

Thursday 10th May sees the Olympic Torch being lit in Greece ready for its long journey to Carmarthenshire and then onto London for the Olympic Games itself. The Olympic torch comes to Wales on Friday 25th May for 4 nights arriving in Monmouthshire and leaving Welshpool on Weds 30th May. The torch will visit every local authority in Wales and comes through South Carmarthenshire on the morning of Sunday 27th May passing through the communities of Llanelli, Burry Port, Pembrey, Kidwelly and Carmarthen before departing to Pembrokeshire. The torch itself will be carried through these communities by a number of local people and we hope they will be cheered to the rafters. Coleg Sir Gar and the County Council's Sports Development team will be offering activities at the College's Llanelli campus early on the Sunday and there will be an excellent viewing spot in Carmarthen Park. For further information, contact the marketing and tourism section via marketing@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Meet the County Council: Sarah Owen

Carmarthenshire County Council has 9,500 employees that work in over 100 different services. One of those is Marketing & Tourism Officer Sarah Owen, who manages the day to day tourism promotional activities the County Council delivers to keep awareness of the area high. These include the relationship with Visit Wales's promotional campaign team, the county council's tourism public relations agency as well as planning and implementing with businesses in the area. Sarah also manages a number of the County Council's community events such as Llanelli's Christmas Carnival, Ammanford's Big Day Out and Carmarthen's Merlin Festival. Educated at Coleg Sir Gar and the University of Wales, Sarah held tourism roles at two of Carmarthenshire's top visitor attractions (the Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre and the National Botanic Garden of Wales) before joining the County Council in 2004. She is available via email (marketing@carmarthenshire.gov.uk) or telephone (01554 744325)

TV Chef Raymond Blanc visits Carmarthenshire for BBC programme

Famous Chef and restaurateur Raymond Blanc has been in Carmarthenshire for the last two days filming an episode for the BBC2 food programme, the Great British Food Revival. The Marketing & Tourism section of the County Council were delighted to assist the production crew and Monsieur Blanc in their planning and delivery of the locations they wished to use and we look forward to seeing the completed programme (although we are sworn to secrecy on what locations and what was covered). The County Council actively promotes the County for media, film and promotional work, and what with close departmental working we can ensure the production team a smooth and easy path to use any area of Carmarthenshire.

BIG maps for a BIG County now available FREE

Large A1 & A2 sized laminated "Discover Carmarthenshire" maps depicting the whole of the County including places to go and visit have have been designed and printed by Carmarthenshire County Council ready for May 2012. The request for these came through the Caravanning sector group meeting held with the County Council as the operators in the County felt such large maps would assist their visitors to plan their trip as the the whole range of Carmarthenshire is in one large format. As well as Caravanning sites, the large maps will be put up in other areas of high footfall like town centre car parks and leisure centres (and i noticed a great spot in Llansteffan beach car park yesterday). If you would like a map, please contact the marketing & tourism section of the County Council via marketing@carmarthenshire.gov.uk.

Hundreds of free photos available from Carmarthenshire Council

Hundred's of photos illustrating the best of Carmarthenshire are now availabe free from Carmarthenshire County Council. Collated over many years, glorious images taken from the air, taken from the sea and taken from the ground have started to be uploaded to the photo sharing website "Flickyr" under the discovercarmarthenshire address and are there to add value to Carmarthenshire (and Welsh) businesses and organisations wanting to improve their online and printed material. These have been uploaded to Visit Wales and among them include Attractions, accomodation and some of the stunning natural lanscapes of the County including the coastline and the valleys and rivers. For further information, contact the marketing & tourism section of the County Council via marketing@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Special offers needed for June half term promotion

Do you have any new products or special offers for the forthcoming Half Term holiday in June that you want to tell the whole of the UK. The marketing & tourism section of the County Council has funded specialist tourism public relations support for over 2 years as it provides an outlet for our businesses to get access to the key English market by either supplying latest offers or new products. It is been very successful! As we target the June 2012 half term holiday across the UK, we need you to send us your latest offers & new products to feed through to the travel editors. Email Sarah and Rhys at marketing@carmarthenshire.gov.uk with your details or for further information. www.discovercarmarthenshire.com