65 things to do during May in Cumbria

4:41pm Thursday 1st May 2008

CUMBRIA Tourism has come up with 65 fun-packed ideas for how to best enjoy the forthcoming bank holiday weekends in the county.

This year for the first time ever, the organisation has linked up with 65 top tourist attractions in the county to produce a pocket-sized Best of Lakeland Attractions' guide featuring some of the best things to do.

More than 375,000 copies will be distributed to tourist information centres around Cumbria, Lancashire, Yorkshire and the North East, as well as other visitor routes such as service stations, hotels and B&Bs.

A total of 55,000 foreign language copies have been produced for the Spanish, German, French, Chinese and Japanese overseas visitor markets.

The county will also be promoted in the heart of London at the biggest tourist information centre in the country - The Britain and London Visitor Centre - which receives over half a million visitors wanting to find information about what to see and do.

It is the first time Cumbria Tourism has produced the guide after taking over the role from South Lakeland District Council this year.

Sheona Southern, Cumbria Tourism Marketing director, said: "We are really pleased with the new-look Best of Lakeland guide and it's a great way to find out what you can do in Cumbria over the forthcoming holiday weekends.

"It is a fantastic pocket-sized guide to show the wide range of tourist attractions we have here and encourages people to get out and about and spread business around the county."

The guide lists the very best Exciting Days out and online viewers should go to http://www.golakes.co.uk/do/attractions/ Some of the attractions featured include Go Ape High Wire Forest Adventure in Grizedale Forest, the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway, The Dock Museum in Barrow, Dove Cottage in Grasmere, Cars of the Stars in Keswick, Maryport's Coastal Aquarium, the Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal, Hutton in the Forest near Wigton, Tullie House in Carlisle, Wordsworth House in Cockermouth and The Beacon in Whitehaven.

One of the attractions featured - the Lakeland Motor Museum, explained the practical benefits of the guide to tourist attractions. The museum is located in the grounds of Holker Hall and features a life-size replica of Donald Campbell's Bluebird along with classic cars, motorbikes and automobilia.

Edwin Maher, the museum's general manager, said: "We are based at Holker Hall as part of a much larger tourism business and lots of people don't realise we are here so this type of marketing is vital to a museum like ours as we simply could not reach this range of potential visitors on our own."

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