We were joined at Walk The Pork by Keith Brown of Visit East
Anglia as well as Pete Waters former editor of The EDP who now heads up Visit
Norfolk.
Keith spoke briefly about the importance that micro
businesses play in the tourist offer of East Anglia and this was expanded upon
by Pete with particular reference to Norfolk.
‘The tourist industry is worth 2.8 billion pounds to the
Norfolk economy and employs 54,000 people – half of these are employed on a
full time basis.
The individual landscapes throughout the county provide
different attractions to our visitors - from the bucket & spade holidays in Great Yarmouth
to the waterlands of The Broads and the gentile villages of North Norfolk to
the untamed beauty of The Brecks. In addition we have a city of culture in
Norwich and we are a royal county – Sandringham being a very important tourist
destination.
These individual landscapes also provide individual food
& drink experiences – something that in the past Norfolk has been very poor
at promoting.
Rob has already explained why The Brecks are so good for outdoor
pig production but why are Cromer crabs so good? It is because there is a reef
just off the coast providing a unique habitat for these world famous
crustaceans.
The North Norfolk Coast also provides the perfect environment
for malting barley – again as a county we produce some of the best barley in
the world – which explains the success of the fifty or so micro breweries that
we have in this county.
About six years ago we set up The Norfolk Food & Drink Festival to help
promote the individual offers that the different parts of Norfolk have to
offer. It has grown since then into a month long celebration of
everything that we have to attract tourists to our county. Food
& Drink are the cherry on the cake as far as our tourist industry is concerned
and foodwebs are becoming an increasingly important part of the attraction.
When Vanessa & Les Scott (of Strattons) have guests staying
with them, these guests want to know the provence of the food that they are
eating. They do not want to come to Norfolk to eat Walls Sausages what they
want is to eat & to be told about Scotts Field Pork.
This is why local food webs are so important to tourism in
our county as they add to the visitor experience of this amazing place.
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