Marathon Trails Launched

Fifty one Shropshire-based rural tourist attractions are giving their businesses an extra boost in the run up to the 2012 Olympic Games through an initiative funded by the Rural Development Programme for England. All are within the magic 26 mile ‘marathon’ radius of Much Wenlock, home of the Wenlock Olympian Games and inspiration for the modern day Olympics. And all the businesses are included in a series of four ‘Marathon Trail’ guides, which tell visitors about special places to go and things to do in the county.

The four Trail Guides are Activities, Family Friendly, Rural & Heritage and Food and cover everything from fishing, golf and cycling, to cookery courses, quirky museums, hidden stately homes, mines and secret gardens.

Councillor Mike Owen, Cabinet member for the economy at Shropshire Council explains, “We have an absolute wealth of little-known attractions in the county and the Marathon Trail Guides will help to bring these to a much wider audience.”

As part of the project, the participating businesses all received training on how to use the internet and social media to promote their businesses. Nicola Bethell from Albrighton’s David Austin Roses is one of those to benefit, commenting, “ It’s given us ideas to increase our social media presence and will definitely encourage more visitors to our Plant Centre and Gardens.” Frank Cartwright from Ray’s Farm Country Matters is also enthusiastic: “ It was a very good morning’s training. We’ll be having a staff meeting now about introducing social media to our marketing.”

The Marathon Trail guides have been designed and produced by Shrewsbury based Starfish Advertising & Marketing Ltd, which was commissioned by the Council to work on the project on behalf of local partners in Much Wenlock.

All 4 Trail Guides can be downloaded in PDF form from this site here