Hotels are having to think even more creatively in order to entice guests in these tough times. With so many Lake District hotels offering discounted rates, which one do you choose? A clever marketing department should be looking at quirky offers or adding value which is something that many tourism businesses are heading towards these days. In 2008, the high quality 3 and 4 star Cumbria hotels reported a good year and it is thought that the added value received from such establishments was one of the leading factors.

Of course, it isn’t just leisure guests that need to be lured. With businesses cutting staff and budgets, the business guest is just as important to target. Cumbria is an excellent stop off for business guests from the south on their way to Scotland. Another market is conferencing. Conferencing facilities and packages are offered in most of the larger hotels Lake District now. With most conferences held on week days, it is an excellent market to target. Creative marketing campaigns are springing up such as the Best Western ‘message focussed menu options’ where bread and water is an option if a team has recorded poor performance. This is an eye catching campaign but which saves the business money but helps to improve the performance of their team as the same time.

Short breaks offers for leisure guests have been popular for some time but short breaks are a great way to get away when money is tight. Keswick hotels are popular with leisure and business guests due to its location and facilities. Easily accessible from the M6 motorway, Keswick has some of the most equipped hotels in Cumbria and with such fantastic scenery and walking, it creates a very cost effective break.

With hotels keeping creative with their offers, listening to the needs of their guests both leisure and business and keeping up a high standard, it should hopefully keep them in a much better position during this recession.

With the Lake District being named most romantic destination this Valentine’s, it isn’t surprising that couples then want to return to get married. A staggering 31% of couples interviewed voted for the Lake District over destinations such as the Cotswolds, Bath and York.
The Lake District has been a popular destination for some time for couples escaping for a romantic weekend break or holiday. Cumbria and The Lake District has a varied choice of areas offering different landscapes from the north Lakes, Keswick and Derwent Water to the busy south Lakes. Each area has a different feel and will accommodate for a variety of tastes.

The romantic nature of this area unsurprisingly attracts couples looking for a wedding destination. Year on year the Lake District is attracting more and more couples with hotels in the Lake District seeing steady increases in weddings throughout the year. There is an excellent choice of Lake District wedding venues due to the high number of hotels. Having this choice enables a wedding party to select the best venue for the size and theme of the wedding. Many hotels offer a cruise on one of the lakes on the wedding day. This can be for the bride and groom only or for the whole wedding party.
The area is very much geared up for Lake District weddings. The large number of weddings held in Lake District hotels has meant other facilities are readily available such as car hire, photographers, DJ’s and cake makers. Should the bride and groom live out of the area, no services need to be brought with them. This of course makes organisation much easier and keeps costs down.

The Lake District is also seeing a high number of honeymooners. Especially high quality 4 and 5 star hotels are plentiful so ultimate luxury can be achieved. Of course, if the couple are into walking then a better destination cannot be found. Purely gazing at the scenery can entertain but there are endless activities, museums, gardens, galleries and activity centres to visit.

As the English Lake District is one of fifty places worldwide that National Geographic states is a must to visit, there is no better way to see it than whilst staying up there at a relative’s wedding. The travelling guests can stay for extra days to make the most of area and their time away.

Acrylic paints became commercially available in the 1950’s but were a mineral spirit-based paint. The water-based paints sold shortly after were a combination of binder, filler, pigment and water. Artists began to discover this acrylic paint and artist quality acrylics became commercially available in the 1960’s.

The beauty of acrylics is that they can be water down to achieve a wash on a canvas similar to watercolour. Without water and the effect is like using oil paints. Fast drying, acrylics are very versatile and they can be used are many different surfaces unlike watercolour and oil and with unparalleled clarity. Layers can be built up to achieve texture whereas this would take years with oil due to the length of time it takes to dry and the pigment does not discolour or become brittle. Mixed media can also be used with acrylics such as charcoal and pastel and particles can be mixed into the paint to achieve an alternative texture.

Acrylic paint is a modern media when compared with watercolour and oil. Oil for example has been used by artists as far back at the 15th century and watercolour has been used as an artist medium since the Renaissance. With such history of these other two mediums, acrylic is always fighting to gain recognition. Acrylic has distinct characteristics as oil and watercolour do and the National Acrylic Painters’ Association was set up in 1985 to champion and support this media. Acrylic is capable of the widest range of approaches of any artist media and enables even more creativity, fresh ideas and progression. Artwork has been created in acrylic paint but artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Bridget Riley and David Hockney to name just a few.

There are now a huge number of artists producing canvas artwork using acrylics and making the optimum use of this versatile media. It has enabled canvas art to be bought by a wider audience due to its fast drying nature and artwork can be created much quicker so a real business can be made out of acrylic artwork. Exhibitions have been in such prestigious venues as the Westminster Gallery and the Durham Art Gallery solely exhibiting and championing acrylic work. Books have been written purely on the characteristics of acrylic paint such as “New Tricks and Techniques for Working with the World’s Most Versatile Medium” by Nancy Reyner and “The New Acrylics:Complete Guide to the New Generation of Acrylic Paints.

It is the family that many tourism operators are hoping will be returning to holiday in the UK. For the last 20 years, more and more families have been going abroad to Europe for their summer holiday and year on year the UK market has been decreasing. The UK seaside used to be thriving and although such places as Devon and Cornwall are still busy in the summer, on the whole, it is less popular. The UK has so many fantastic places like Scotland and Wales for walking, the Northumberland coast where there is 10 miles of coast with some of the cleanest and whitest sand in the country, down to Dorset and the Isle of White.

The UK of course does have a downside in the weather but what the UK lacks in sunshine, it makes up for in activities and good old fashioned fun. The Lake District is especially suited to families with its vast choice of activities. Firstly there are the fells. Walking and taking in the spectacular scenery in the Lake District is not only good exercise but it is free. Other activities in Cumbria and the Lake District are Muncaster Castle, the World Owl Trust, Ravenglass Steam Railway, Lake District Coast Aquarium, Puzzling Place and Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick, Beatrix Potter Museum and cycling tours at Grizedale Forest. A trip to the Lakes isn’t complete without a boat trip. Windermere, Coniston, Ullswater and Derwentwater are the main lakes for boat trips. It gives a different perspective on the fells from the water than on land.

Organized Lake District children breaks take away all the stress of having to think of what to do each day. An organized package takes care of all the booking of venues and has an itinerary each day. This kind of holiday helps families get the most out of their Lake District holiday and can include activities such as sailing, walking, museum trips, picnics and cycling. Many have been designed to enable families to spend time together but also making consideration for the parents by giving them a few hours of freedom with the children only activities.

The Euro is not the only reason UK family holidays are predicted to increase. The awareness of climate change and the impact of flying on the environment is something that is making families think twice about going abroad. A return flight from London to Barcelona for example produces half of tonne of carbon dioxide per person. That is an awful lot when compared with a return car journey from London to the Lake District short breaks which creates a 10th of a tonne of carbon dioxide. Once a family has realized what good they are doing for their children’s future, money saved and most importantly, how much fun can be had on a holiday in the UK, it is sure to make the UK tourism industry flourish once again.

The reason for this is that the embodied energy required to manufacture a modular building is transportable as the embodied energy is locked within the fabric of the building. Therefore the energy contained within pre-owned modular buildings can be transported and relocated to another site. In traditional buildings this is largely lost when they are no longer required and demolished, even when the materials are re-cycled. However, with modular and portable buildings the embodied energy can be relocated along with the modules to another site.

Where a modular or portable building is relocated, with minimal alteration, the amount of energy used is less than three percent of the energy that would be required to manufacture an equivalent new building. Even when the modular building is refurbished and reconfigured internally, the energy used is no more than ten percent of the energy that would be required to create a new modular building.

The Modular and Portable Buildings Association has produced an energy performance standards document (ADL-2A) which provides supporting information and guidelines for compliance with the Government’s special considerations relating to the design and construction of modular and portable buildings.

So buying a quality pre-owned modular building not only saves you money and is an immediate solution to your accommodation needs, but it also makes a difference to the environment by recycling the embodied energy contained within the building.

Modular and portable buildings come in all different sizes including multi-story they can be used for such a wide variety of functions including mobile classrooms, temporary offices, construction site accommodation and portable storage buildings.

Heatrea Sadia Megaflo HE SystemFit Indirect Hot Water Cylinder, is designed to reduce significantly on-site installation time. The factory-assembled Heatrae Sadia Megaflo Systemfit Unvented Cylinders are pre-plumbed and pre-wired with Danfoss central heating controls, pump, automatic by-pass valve and balancing valve. Heatrae Sadia Megaflo HE Systemfit Indirect Unvented Hot Water Cylinder at PlumbNation is from the widely recognised brand leader Heatrae Sadia.

The NEW Heatrae Sadia Megaflo HE Systemfit Unvented Cylinder now boasts numerous innovative features designed to ensure superior levels of operating efficiency, delivering even more hot water – just when you need it! The Heatrae Sadia Megaflo HE Systemfit Unvented Indirect Hot Water Cylinder ensures a constant supply of high power hot water, whether it’s a single bedsit, a luxury family home or a busy sports club shower complex.

In addition to the basic advantages of unvented systems, the NEW high efficiency Megaflo HE Systemfit Hot Water Cylinder offers a number of features that place it well ahead of the competition in terms of performance, quality and reliability. Thanks to the high-performance ‘coil in coil’ heat exchanger; more hot water is available quicker than ever before.

Heatrae Sadia Megaflo HE Systemfit Indirect Hot Water Cylinder Product Features:

- Megaflo HE – the UK’s No. 1 unvented cylinder
- 125 & 145 litre capacities with 22mm primary connections
- 170, 210, 250 & 300 litre capacities with 28mm primary connections.
- Danfoss TP9 Controls (S Plan configuration only)
- No maintenance three speed circulating pump
- Automatic by-pass valve for system efficiency
- Load balancing valve for indirect coil efficiency
- Connections for vented and unvented heating primaries
- Patented cold water inlet diffuser minimises mixing of cold and hot water

One very famous artist by the name of David Hockney, although from West Yorkshire, produced a series of paintings of the East Yorkshire landscape. David Hockney is arguably the most famous and influential British artist of the 20th century. David Hockney’s paintings are renowned around the world having exhibited in New York, Germany, Japan and Portugal.

A series of five East Yorkshire landscapes were shown for the first time at Tate Britain in 2007. This beautiful area is often misunderstood by the people of the UK associating this area with fishing and flat, unspectacular landscapes. Hockney changed this perception and along with the regeneration of East Yorkshire, most notably Hull, this area is finally being put on the map for the right reasons.

These canvas artwork pieces were all painted in the same location in Woldgate Woods during the course of one year. Quite different from many of Hockney’s other work, this series of five were all 12 feet long. Hockney has described the area as having “the sorts of wide vistas you get all the time in the American West,”. Canvas art is synonymous with David Hockney but it is watercolour that he would first create his painting of East Yorkshire in. He would then revisit the site and again, almost entirely in situ, paint the finished canvas art in oils. Watercolour enabled Hockney to capture the landscape quickly through the changing light.

The Hull has begun to champion young artists and The University of Hull art collection features British art, paintings, drawings and sculpture 1890-1940, including works by Sickert, Steer, Lucien Pissarro, Augustus John, Stanley Spencer, Epstein and Moore. Camden Town and Bloomsbury artists are particularly featured. Hull is also luring artists to the area from as high an education at The Royal College of Art.

There are many art galleries in East Yorkshire exhibiting canvas artwork, contemporary and classical art and watercolours and oils. This area of Yorkshire has strong sea, coastal and fishing ties being such a large part of its heritage and these themes can be found in the art here.

The need for a change in the way in which a property search is obtained has been long overdue. The official local authority searches were always one of the
main reasons for delay with the conveyancing process as Local Authority searches often took a long time to be returned after ordering, up to twelve weeks in fact. Access to information was not formalised and often obstructed by the local authorities. Since independent consultants and businesses have started to provide Personal searches things have improved dramatically and pressure has been applied to Local Authority departments to improve access to the data they hold. After all, they are paid to collect and hold this information on behalf of the public by the local rate payers. It is not their information they are simply custodians of the information required to collate a local search.

It has taken a while but now Personal searches have been proved to lenders and solicitors to be correct and efficient. These are; convenience of ordering, email, fax, or even good old Royal Mail. From a payment point of view, these Personal searches often offer a thirty day account unlike the local authority that requires payment with order. Selling a house is an expensive procedure so the ability to defer the payment for a month helps immensely. Prices for personal searches are competitive with a choice of companies offering the facility and the ability to order electronically even including electronic delivery. The Department of Local Government developed the National Land Information Service, NLIS, to allow customers to place their orders electronically and receive them back as emails. All the local authorities were to subscribe to this service and create electronic data bases to transmit the searches. As we write this it has not happened whereas the independent companies can deliver searches and Home Information Packs in which ever format is most convenient for the client. To give further comfort to users of personal searches The Property Codes Compliance Board, PCCB, was formed and good search companies are members and agree to abide by the code of practice which incorporates a complaints procedure.

Since the introduction of Hips the search industry has become more prices sensitive and personal searches are the preferred option for ninety percent of the solicitors and estate agents as the price for a personal search is usually lower than the local authority can provide. Also the lenders have realised that if
they want to provide mortgages for Hip’s they must accept personal searches and with the insurance attached to the personal searches they have less risk than those from local authorities which do not have insurance cover. Now only the more obscure and less switched on lenders will not accept personal searches.

There is a misconception that personal searches in a Home Information Pack go out of date after three months. This is not the case. The searches and indeed the whole Hip are acceptable for as long as the property is marketed although some solicitors acting for potential buyers are asking for the local search, whether official or personal, to be renewed as things such as tree preservation orders, planning agreements, conservation areas etc can change overnight. This is simply due diligence and not a reflection on searches.

Official Local Authority Searches or Personal searches? The choice is yours.

The best method of getting around the city is to use the London Underground, which is a metro system serving Greater London and the neighbouring areas. It is the world’s oldest underground railway and with two hundred and sixty eight stations and approximately two hundred and fifty miles of track it is also the longest metro system in the world.

Visitors to the city are spoilt for choice when it comes to accommodation with all different types being provided including luxurious hotels, self catering properties, a London bed and breakfast, or a Guest House London, right down to the most basic of hostels. Being a capital city the cost of accommodation tends to be more expensive than the rest of the UK, but breaks here do not have to be expensive as it is possible to find a cheap London hotel.

When it comes to sightseeing in London the list is endless including Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Tate Gallery, Harrods, Imperial War Museum, Covent Garden, the Globe William Shakespeare Theatre, Trafalgar Square and the Tower of London.  A great way of seeing many of these sites is to take one of the many tours of London that are available, perhaps even from the comfort of an open top bus if the weather is nice.

In the evenings you can enjoy dinner at one of the city’s fantastic restaurants with just about every nationality of food being provided. Here you have a unique opportunity to try something different that you would not normally find on restaurant menus back home. When was the last time you tried a Hungarian, Lebanese, Burmese or Nelapese dish? After dinner we recommend that you head to London’s famous West End to see one of the excellent theatre productions, such as Chicago, Mama Mia, Billy Elliot, or Phantom of the Opera.

Torquay is the main hub, often called the ‘capital’ of the English Riviera. The Victorian marks of this seaside resort are still there but Torquay has most certainly evolved with its lively harbour scene, quayside shops and chic cafes and superb marina offering lots of boat trips. Torquay really started to boom after the Neopoleonic Wars, when Torbay’s docking facilities provided the perfect setting for a large navel base. In then came the families of workers on this base, plus shortly followed by the tourists. With the coming of the railways Torquay continued to grow, becoming a popular Victorian seaside resort with more and more Torquay hotels springing up.

Torquay today is prime Devon seaside holiday territory, with its blue flag beaches, an elegant and lively waterfront lined with palm trees – very exotic!, cafes, restaurants and pubs and bars. Torquay offers excellent nightlife, and is extremely popular as a stag weekend break, and hen parties! Torquay has a few celebrities to its name as well. Agatha Christie was born here, and spent much of her life in this region. Fawlty Towers was filmed here as well, probably the most famous of the Devon hotels!

North Devon is becoming more and more popular having also many blue flag beaches but quieter than Torquay. The beaches of Woolacombe, Croyde and Saunton have long been popular with surfers. Croyde holds a large surfing completion each year. These three beaches offer a combined 10 km of golden sand. The rides at Croyde tend to be quite short so this beach is popular with shortboarders whereas the longer beaches of Woolacoombe and Saunton are less busy and provide longer rides.

Staying in one of the many Devon cottages is becoming more and more popular with families. These cottages are often situated in beautiful surroundings and period properties but they also offer more space for a larger group and have more facilities than a caravan or hotel holiday.

Wildlife enthusiasts flock to this area too as the North Devon coast was designated an Area of Outstanding Natural beauty in 1959. Compromising of a total of 171 square km, the North Devon AONB spans from Marsland Mouth on the Cornish border to Combe Martin and the edge of the Exmoor National Park.