Blackpool Council put £500,000 towards the illuminations to make up for the lack of donations it has received from hotels and other businesses. Last year, £33,000 was donated by local businesses to just £23,000 this year. At one point the donations topped £110,000 but this has slowly declined over the years.

If Blackpool Council made good on the suggestion on closing the illuminations, then would this be the nail in the coffin for local hotels in Blackpool and other businesses?

It is no surprise that the illuminations period is by far the busiest time of the season for Blackpool. Although the income in cash received to support just the illuminations is lower than ever, the money spent in the town is the result of this period. Is this just a scare mongering tactic to force businesses into digging deep into their pockets and help support this event?

Should Blackpool Council decide that the £500,000 is not worth investing each year, then it would be argued that this would be short sightedness and detrimental to the town’s heritage and interest worldwide.

Blackpool hoteliers and other businesses would be at risk, sinking further towards the red and Blackpool could face an unprecedented number of foreclosures on the high street.

Instead of lashing out talking about ‘what if we close’ kind of discussions, there should be more business focus on what the attraction brings each year and how to quantify it. To simply turn off one of Britain’s major attractions because of a balance sheet mentality just highlights the same argument of ‘what have Blackpool Council spent the taxes on over the years?’

Support the illuminations if you have a business in Blackpool by all means, but you already pay high council and business tax rates. So instead of the council increasing these further, questions need to be asked as to where the money has gone in the past, and the plans for it in the future.

The history of Blackpool is evident throughout the town and the same mistakes don’t want to be made over the next 50 years.

Are you trying to sell your hotel in Blackpool? Are you listed on the usual estate agents in Blackpool but haven't had anyone step through your door to see your property? According to the Blackpool Gazette, £73m worth of Blackpool hotels are currently up for sale as of this month. Even though Blackpool is booming with the credit crunch situation of the UK and the weak Euro, more hotels are putting up their for sale sign.

You can and should do more yourself. This is vital if you really want to push your property to the front of your estate agents queue.
What can you do? Check to see if you or your estate agent has covered the basics as follows;

1. Pictures, Pictures, Pictures! You need quality pictures that are taken in a professional manner with the correct lens, lighting and a tidy non cluttered view. This is exactly the same when you are selling rooms on a daily or weekly basis for your trade. There are rarely enough quality pictures on a typical high street estate agent advert, thus limiting the people from seeing your business. Would you buy a new car based on a postcard picture and bit of text at the bottom of it? Surprisingly many businesses are basically advertised in this manner.
2. Accounts. Are they in order and do you have a good trading history? If not, explain properly why not. Buyers looking to buy a Blackpool hotel often have no experience and as such may find it daunting to consider anything without a long and successful history.
3. Will you help them when they move in? This goodwill gesture can be a clinch point. It is common for a handover to be one weekend, quickly rushing through the hotel. How about helping daily for month helping until they are confident? Plus being available for months after to answer those points that always come about for the first year.
4. Is your hotel competitively priced with the current market conditions right now? As nice as your hotel is, 6 bedrooms will always have a ceiling on what it can earn over a 12 bedroomed alternative.
5. Interview your estate agent. Crazy to say, but estate agents roughly charge 1.5-3% depending whether it is sole or multiagency. Would you feel bad paying an estate agent £10,000 if they have not covered the above and much more and it takes 5-10 years to sell?
6. Look around the internet yourself on where to advertise. There are many more options than the local estate agents which can catch a much wider audience than the local agencies. You could also save massive commissions by doing this.

This topic is huge and vitally important if serious about selling. It is rarely researched enough by hoteliers who expect that by listing at the usual estate agents will supply enough prospective purchasers. In this current climate, this is more and more unlikely. Really examine point 6, and find some hotels listing outside of the usual channels. See what YOU would buy if you were in the market for a hotel in Blackpool and maybe they have some of the points listed above covered.

We sold our property using Blackpool Hotels For Sale. A listing costs £99 with no other hidden fee's. You can write whatever advert you want, as long as you want, and with 20+ pictures. They even offer a free picture service. They will also link it a Blackpool hotel booking site if you wish to bring in more bookings whilst you are still trading. Good luck with your next venture.

Dispatches a few nights ago touched on the cereal manufacturers in Britain. This program touched on a similar topic as did the Supersize Me film in 2004.

The topic of program was regarding cereal manufacturers in Britain who refuse to accept the long proposed traffic light system for labeling the 3 essential ingredients, salt, sugar and fat.

Currently, there has to be labeling on the outside of the packaging listing the full ingredients, but a survey by the Dispatches team showed that most people on the high street when asked to decipher a standard box, the majority couldn't understand the information being given to them and subsequently purchased on the 'perception' of what may be conceived as healthy.

As the Daily Mail confirms also;

Revealed: The breakfast cereals saltier than crisps and with more sugar than a doughnut.

Read this to see if you would have expected the following;

Why write about this on a Blackpool Hotel blog? We'll for one politics, as for many people enrages me, and where the system fails is when common sense does not prevail. There is a fine connection though in this topic in that I was interested in watching this program and comparing it to a good old fashion Blackpool Hotel cooked breakfast.

Well according to the Food Standards Agency, they were asked the question and said;

Can a traditional cooked breakfast ever be a healthy choice?

Yes - If you grill lean bacon, poach the eggs and include reduced sugar/salt baked beans, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms cooked without fat, and serve it all up with thick crusty granary bread, you'll be giving your customers a delicious cooked breakfast that is also healthy and balanced.

OK we don't have stats and figures here to provide for you, but taking into account the ingredients, surely you could only agree with them?

It's not all bad though, Kellogg's have released a very detailed press release following the airing of the Dispatches program. Some of the information listed on the site sounds convincing and all adds to a case on their defense. However one of the main points in Dispatches was the 'traffic light system' which Kellogg's answers with the following;

If labels are to help shoppers make informed choices they need to be based on what people actually eat in a serving. That’s why we use GDA’s, not traffic lights, which judge a food based on 100g portion.

They have NOT addressed the research of Dispatches in which they highlighted that the average consumer of these products does not either read or understand the GDA labeling, hence buying as said on 'perception'. How many parents would buy a cereal if it contained 3 red stars for fat, sugar and salt?

It's ironic really that the producers of Kellogg's Common Sense (main sponsors of the Olympics) don't seem to apply any Common Sense in helping inform parents the best choice for their children.

I suspect with a little peer pressure and more publicising Kellogg's would possibly introduce this method. However they have to be wary of turning children off their products in the process of producing real healthier options. It would be a start in trying to reduce the growing obesity problem that is plaguing this country!