Tourism Close to Home: Thoughts from The Banburian
I’ve just finished nearly two years at VisitEngland and what an education in tourism and destination marketing THAT was.
I was already interested in that sort of thing on a local level. I mean, what is The Banburian if not an ‘interest in place’ turned into blog and with social media channels? I’ve been at this for years now:
- exploring the town’s history
- mapping out itineraries featuring the surrounding areas
- turning the spotlight on local hospitality businesses
- throwing myself head first into English Tourism week posts
- getting involved in mounting photo exhibitions in town and documenting the town’s calendar of events for many years for the local council
But working at VisitEngland gave me a much wider perspective on how destinations think about themselves, how they attract visitors, support the visitor economies, how different organisations work together (or sometimes don’t), and how tourism connects with everything from culture and events to regeneration and the future of the high street.
Inevitably, some of that thinking found its way back to the The Banburian.
I always wrote there as an interested local tourist, someone who enjoys being a visitor in her own town. And while all that is still true, I’ve come to realise that I’ve written more and more the past couple of years with an actual destination marketing hat on – sometimes explicitly about tourism, sometimes about placemaking, regeneration or events, but almost always with the same underlying question: What would it look like if we thought more deliberately about Banbury as a place people might choose to visit?
So rather than reproduce those posts here, I thought I’d gather a few of them together.
- Banbury and the MICE market: an opportunity we’re not quite claiming
Business tourism doesn’t necessarily spring to mind when people think about Banbury. But it’s got great transport connections, have a surprising range of meeting and event spaces suitable for SME gatherings, and sits within easy reach of huge swathes of businesses. So why aren’t we making more of it? - Banbury’s next chapter: why the Masterplan and Town of Culture need each other
A town that is interesting, welcoming and enjoyable for the people who live there is very likely going to be more interesting, welcoming and enjoyable for visitors as well. That’s why I felt the two conversations around Banbury’s Masterplan (or Vision document or whatever they call these things) and its Town of Culture ambitions made sense to bring together - Banbury as Town of Culture? Anything’s possible
When the possibility of Banbury becoming Oxfordshire’s Town of Culture was raised, there was much chortling on the Facebook groups. But I started thinking about what that could actually mean — not simply as a title or a programme of events, but as an opportunity to get people thinking differently about the town. - Staycations and the joys of local exploring
You don’t always need to travel very far to be a tourist. Sometimes looking at the places around you with a visitor’s curiosity is enough to remind you how much you’ve stopped noticing. - Banbury definitely belongs at the tourism table
Written for English Tourism Week 2025 (I write something for it every year – 2026 was a whole series), I made the case that while Banbury may not be a tourist destination in the way that Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon or the Cotswolds are, it sits tidily between all three. That makes it a great base for exploring that also has its own history, stories, food heritage, culture and attractions.
Taken together, these posts aren’t just about tourism. They are also about how locals understand what they have, how they tell their stories and, absolutely crucially, whether they recognise opportunities that don’t fit neatly into anybody’s specific, individual remit.
And seeing how different areas deal with a lot of those questions, address a lot of challenges around them – feels increasingly like a really interesting space to explore.
