New visitor website for Leicester and Leicestershire launched

Leicester Shire Promotions has launched a major upgrade to the official visitor website for Leicester and Leicestershire. www.goleicestershire.com attracted over 1.275 million visitors in 2009/10, making it one of the most viewed destination sites in the UK, ahead of traditionally popular visitor destinations such as Blackpool, Chester and Manchester. The new site builds on this success with a major refresh of the site's design, content and functionality to encourage greater interaction with potential visitors and increase online bookability for short breaks in Leicester and Leicestershire.

With evolving technology and changes in the way people use and utilise the Internet, www.goleicestershire.com is now offering visitors to the site a more interactive destination experience. You can view scrolling image galleries, receive online real-time tourist information, easier click to book functionality and links into Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Tripadvisor. The site offers visitors the chance to be travel writers for the day and post experiences - including images and articles - of days out or visits to Leicestershire to a ‘My Recommendations' facility, for other visitors to view.

Leicester Shire Promotions and its technical partner, New Vision Group, will continue to develop www.goleicestershire.com and maintain working relationships with tourism industry partners to ensure that it offers ease of bookability, usability and functionality to visitors to the site.

Martin Peters, Chief Executive of Leicester Shire Promotions commented: "With an increasing number of visitors looking to book short breaks online, we've focused the development of the site to deliver a wide variety of new and innovative features. This additional functionality will provide people with one of the most user-friendly and informative travel websites in the UK to help them make their decision to visit and stay in Leicester and Leicestershire."

About Leicester Shire Promotions:
Leicester Shire Promotions is a private, not-for-profit company formed in July 2003 as a partnership between Leicester City Council, Leicestershire County Council and East Midlands Development Agency. The company is the Destination Management Organisation (DMO) responsible for promoting Leicester and Leicestershire to visitors, based on a coordinated place marketing strategy that focuses on destination leadership and coordination, attracting and visitors, services for and visitors, and services for the tourism industry. For more information, please visit www.goleicestershire.com or follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/l_p_l

For further media information, please contact:
Nimisha Mehta
Leicester Shire Promotions
T: 0116 225 4063
nimisha.mehta@l-p-l.com