Caldicot Castle wins major tourism grant

A major tourism marketing grant worth £10,000 has been awarded to Caldicot Castle.

The venue has been chosen as the Welsh recipient of marketing support by tourism ‘dating agency' Travel XRay, a company which specialises in identifying the most profitable market segments for businesses.

One location in each of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales was chosen to receive the grant.  The money will be used to improve the profile of the castle and will give Caldicot Castle regular features in the Travel XRay CD-Traveller publication (with a circulation of 1.2million) and other national marketing opportunities.

Caldicot Castle, which is managed by Monmouthshire County Council, was successful in securing the award because, despite its considerable tourism potential, it consistently under-achieves in terms of visitor numbers and profile.

Adrian Lawes of Travel XRay, who broke the good news to Monmouthshire County Council, explained why Caldicot Castle's bid stood out from the other applications:

"Caldicot Castle is one of the jewels in Monmouthshire's crown and, being close to the M4/M48, is highly accessible to visitors, but just doesn't achieve the level of visitor numbers of other heritage sites in the area.

"In 2008, the venue attracted just half as many visitors as the nearby castles at Chepstow and Raglan; by awarding this grant to Caldicot Castle, we hope to find out why and help the castle to achieve the visitor numbers that it deserves.

"This initiative is intended to demonstrate the potential for every destination to generate increased numbers of leisure visitors through improved targeting."

Elected members and council officers were delighted to receive news of the grant, and staff at the castle will be working with the rest of the council to maximise the grant's potential.

Castle Development Officer, Anita Badhan, said:

"We're really pleased to have been selected for this prestigious award. It's very encouraging news that Caldicot's magnificent medieval castle, set in 55 acres of beautiful parkland, is set to benefit from knowing its customers better.

"The castle has seen a year on year increase in visitor numbers and runs an active events programme as well as hosting weddings. However, dwindling local authority budgets mean that resources just aren't available to thoroughly research our target audience amongst visitors, so this grant will be invaluable in helping us make the best use of our resources in the future.

"We're all very excited about the Tourism XRay grant and can't wait to take advantage of the new marketing opportunities that it provides."