There are some invitations that you read twice just to make sure you’ve understood them properly. For us, one of those invitations was an invitation to 10 Downing Street. Following our double Gold success at the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence, we were invited by VisitEngland to attend the launch of English Tourism Week at the Prime Minister’s official residence in Downing Street.
Anthony and Larissa with CEO of Visit England Patricia Yates
Before we even got to Downing Street, though, the day had already started rather differently to normal. We were invited onto the BBC Radio Merseyside breakfast show, where we spoke to Kev Duala about Sunnyside, winning our two Gold awards and what it is like running a small independent guest house in Southport.
Talking about the awards on the radio was a great way to start the day, although I’m not sure either of us will ever completely get used to hearing ourselves on the radio! Then it was off to Downing Street. Walking through the famous black door at Number 10 was one of those moments that doesn’t quite feel real.
There were tourism businesses and organisations from across England gathered to mark the start of English Tourism Week, and it was fantastic to see just how much passion there is for the industry. We spent the day chatting to people from all sorts of different parts of tourism. We bumped into Patricia Yates, CEO of VisitEngland, who had been such a big part of our journey since the awards, and had the chance to meet the Tourism Minister and talk about our experience at Sunnyside.
We also somehow found ourselves chatting to the CEO of easyJet! It’s not every day that a small guest house from Southport gets to have conversations like that. But perhaps the most unexpected celebrity encounter of the day was with Larry the Cat.