Media Coverage

The English Riviera continues to be a popular destination for both UK and Overseas journalists to visit and the English Riviera BID Company helps fund these visits to maximise publicity for the area. Presented below are some of the features that have resulted from journalists visits.

Recent interviews and enquiries have included:

Sky News – ‘pinging’ crisis
BBC Spotlight – various
BBC Radio Devon
ITV Westcountry – Covid impacts
Greatest Hits Radio
Channel 5 – Susan Calman’s – Great Day Out (new series being filmed)
Channel 5 – South West Coast Path (Michael Portillo)
ITV – Joanne Lumley – Home Sweet Home
VisitBritain – England’s Seafood Coast
Telegraph
Saturday Mail
Daily Mail – Simon Heptinstall – Riviera Revival
TripAdvisor
Western Morning News
Torbay Weekly – various
Herald Express – various
traveldinerelax.com
Coast Magazine
UK Government (Tourism Minister Visits)

Local Media

The English Riviera BID Company is frequently interviewed on South West tourism matters and special tourism features regularly on ITV Westcountry and BBC Spotlight.

National Media

In August 2018, The Only Way is Essex (TOWIE) cast were due to film in the English Riviera for a ‘short break’ episode. The series peaked in 2018 with over 1 million viewers and the cast had a combined Instagram following of nearly 12 million people. The episode was due to air in October 2018 but was unfortunately cancelled.
In February 2019, The Guardian inquired about featuring The English Riviera in their British Boltholes series.
In April 2019, the ERBID team liaised with Phil Tuckett from BBC Inside Out to discuss The English Riviera featuring on ‘Britain’s Busiest Summer’ on BBC2. However, unfortunately, the programme didn’t lead anywhere.
Simon Heptinstall, editor and writer for Mail on Sunday Travel section. Simon visited the English Riviera from 28th to 30th April 2019. His article was published in June 2019 – “The English Riviera – It’s all the rage again”
In June 2019, The Daily Mail published an article featuring photos of the Air Show – “Perfectly-timed photo captures RAF Typhoon creating its own cloud”. The website is read by 180 million people per day.
Steve Li, producer for The Gadget Show, requested footage of the English Riviera for an introduction segment of a programme that featured local entrepreneurs in July 2019. The programme is due to be aired in Autumn 2019.
Philip Gradwell, journalist for The Sun visited on 2nd-4th July 2019, co-ordinated by James from Firefly PR. The article was published on 10th August 2019 – “The 25 in Torquay is truly the World’s Best B&B — it’s Fawlt-less“

International Media

Elspeth Jenkins, fashion and lifestyle editor of Marie Claire Belgium and photographer, Christian Maes due to stay on 18th & 19th August 2019. She will be visiting Greenway and staying at The Grand Hotel.

Bloggers and Influencers

In June 2019, Liz Madeley from Day Out With The Kids published an article entitled ‘50 Best Seaside Towns in UK‘. Both Torquay and Paignton featured in the Top 10.
In June 2019, on National Fish and Chips Day, Visit Britain used the ‘Taste of the English Riviera’ film on Twitter – tweeting it out to their 385,000+ followers.

US Connections Project

Fionn Davenport, journalist from Lonely Planet was commissioned by the US Connections Project and coordinated by Emma Tatlow, Destination Plymouth. Fionn visited the English Riviera from 7th and 8th July 2018.
Fiona Mclean from London Unattached, visited English Riviera and Greenway from 9th to 11th July 2019.

Seafood FEAST

During the 2018 FEAST, the English Riviera was visited by German journalists, including:

Paul Stanner, editor and travel writer for Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung
Gisela Steinhauer, radio presenter and writer for WDR2 Radio ‘Sonntagsfragen’

Seafood Coast

Joachim Reinshagen (editor) and Britta von Lucke (TV presenter) filming during 30th March to 6th April 2019. A 60-minute TV special “Spring in Devon” filmed by NDR Nordseereport, with 5-6 small film broadcasts on nationwide TV station, ARD with an expected 650,000 – 1 million German viewers.
Ella Mae Wester from Vriendin – a weekly women’s lifestyle magazine – print circulation: 611,000 and unique monthly visitors: 123,814
Jody Mijts, OngewoonLekker.com – an online culinary platform – unique monthly visitors: 60,000
Sophie van der Meer from ELLE Eten – a culinary magazine/website of ELLE – print circulation: 30,000 and unique monthly visitors: 425,000
Ron Peereboom Voller from RonReizen – a travel platform for ages 40+ (former editor in chief of Telegraaf) – unique monthly visitors: 75,000

The 25 Boutique B&B named the ‘Best B&B in the World’

In January 2019, The 25 Boutique B&B in Torquay was named the ‘Best B&B in the World’ by TripAdvisor. This has been the biggest ERBID PR story for 2019 and garnered a lot of media coverage, in print, on the radio and on TV. Below are a selection of the press coverage: