Top 10 Reasons to Join Us

Everyone at Forest of Dean and Wye Valley Tourism works really hard to ensure our members all benefit and the membership fees go collectively towards raising the profile of the area, developing our tourism offer and supporting all of our member businesses fairly. We always aim to maximise every opportunity for our members.

For a full list of member benefits and packages available please see here.

Here are our Top 10 Reasons for Joining Forest of Dean and Wye Valley Tourism:

1. We Bring Visitors to the Area and to your Business

Forest of Dean and Wye Valley Tourism is the official Destination Management Organisation and the only membership organisation for our area. We are the only body which promotes this cross-county, cross-country area to local, national and international visitors. Visitors to the region contribute over £372m (2018) to the local economy and support 8% of employment. By joining us, your business benefits in raising your profile to these potential visitors.

2. You'll Get a Valuable Listing on our Website

Our website is the main tourism website for the area and in 2021 had 370,000 unique visitors to it. Our members include almost 300 tourism businesses covering accommodation, attractions, things to do, food and drink producers, and places to eat offering the consumer the best source for planning their visit. Our What's On is the main source of information on events in the area and our SEO is excellent meaning your business is found from online search engines such as Google and Bing.

We regularly update the website with fresh, engaging content for our target audiences, providing vital information for visitors on what to do here, where to eat and drink and where to stay.

Each member business has a unique listing and a link to bring customers directly to your website. Our website ranks highly in Google and our content generates valuable visits to your business's website.

3. We'll Make You Stand Out on Social Media

We know how important social media is today and we invest heavily in this using a specialist Social Media Agency.

We post great visual content to promote our area and members, and run targeted Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns to get repeat visits and new visitors.

In the last 12 months alone, we have reached organically (for free) 3 million users on Facebook, 300,000 people on Instagram and been shown 1.7 million times (impressions) on Twitter. Our advertising campaigns have reached many thousands more people as well.

As a member of Forest of Dean and Wye Valley Tourism you have the opportunity to be featured on our social media accounts. Gold members have priority inclusion.

4. You'll Benefit from the Power of Our PR

Using a specialist PR agency, we champion our area to both regional and national media titles and issue regular press releases. We always try to cover all member categories and give as many members visibility in this as we can. In the last year, we have been featured in a wealth of high-profile titles including The Times, Guardian, and more. We have also run many influencer visits. Members can submit stories and news to be featured in our PR activity at no additional charge. Gold Members get access to press trips and influencer features.

5. You Can Be Part of Our Innovative and Engaging Digital Marketing Campaigns

We use the power of our collective marketing budget wisely and look to secure external funding from local and national bodies when available, to create impactful digital marketing campaigns to attract our key target audiences.

Some of our campaigns in recent years have included our Tolls Campaign, Leaf Peeping, Open For Business and Find Your Freedom.

In 2019 we secured investment from the Forest of Dean District Council to deliver a hugely successful Severn Bridge Tolls Removal Campaign which had a reach of almost 500k people in four weeks across Facebook and Instagram.

We also secured investment from the Discover England Fund targeting oversees travel trade with new group experiences from our members.

We create great marketing content – commissioning photography, videos and PDF guides that are free for you to use in your own marketing. You'll have completely free access to our huge image library, maps and guides including high resolution professional images for use on your own website and social media. This saves you considerable marketing budget and time.

6. We Provide Market Insights and Research on Our Destination

We run regular value and volume research, ROI research and work with external research companies to provide monthly ‘How’s Business’ barometers. We provide our members with key market insights that would not be affordable to undertake alone and this data is invaluable when setting up a new business and applying for grants and loans as well as using the information for investors and customers. We also share this data with our national tourist boards Visit Britain, Visit Wales and Visit England helping to ensure our area is represented alongside other UK DMOs.

7. You'll Have Access to Our Membership Meetings, Networking and Forums

We hold regular member meetings, events and a bi-annual Tourism Forum. We invite interesting and high profile speakers to update our members on industry trends and latest thinking. We invite members to participate in 'Member Spotlights' and we invite new members to introduce themselves to all of our other members.

There is a monthly members’ email newsletter and we have a ‘closed’ Facebook group to update our members, enabling members to collaborate, share and celebrate our successes, and ask for recommendation and/or fellow member support. The networking opportunities are excellent, offering members access to our 300 member businesses, if you are looking for awareness and/or collaboration this is a great member benefit.

We ask you what you think, want and feel with member questionnaires and feedback sessions. We listen and represent your interests collectively.

8. We Provide Advice, Support and Training

Joining our DMO means joining a group of professional tourism experts who can also help guide and advise you. Many new businesses join us for this very reason including joining us some time before they are ready to open to the public to make use of our knowledge and expertise in setting up their business. Whether you are looking for website or marketing advice, online booking platforms or pricing, how to take reservations, advice on health and safety or environmental health, working with any of our partners or member businesses or setting up, if you run a consumer facing business or B2B service in the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley there are a huge amount of benefits to joining us. In fact your listing with us works in place of a website. Because of our strong standing online and excellent SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), your listing will be found and seen by your target customers. As long as your listing has all of the information necessary for the consumer to visit/book you don't even need a separate website!

We are here to work together for the broader benefit of our members and to enable us all to have more impact than one business working in isolation, no matter what size you are. We aim to provide support, advice and useful insight from other members' experiences.

Based on your member feedback, we run training sessions on business and marketing topics to assist our members’ in running their businesses more easily. We provide information on business support, guidance and training locally many of which are free or subsidised.

9. We Represent Your Business Globally and Provide Leadership for Our Visitor Economy

We represent our area at national, international and regional events (regional showcases, travel trade shows, VIBE, ITB Berlin, World Travel Market) and represent our members and the views of our members. We are asked to host travel trade delegations, speak at events, give our opinion about the visitor economy, and share our members’ experiences. We host familiarisation trips and provide itineraries including our member businesses.

We are also in regular contact with our partners, including local councils, MPs and businesses such as Forestry England and Wye Valley AONB. We can inform you of their updates, marketing campaigns and news releases, ensuring you are kept up-to-date on crucial local information. We also participate in Visit England, Visit Wales and Visit Britain meetings ensuring we are represented as a destination on a national platform and we update our members on their news, campaigns and business support information too.

10. You'll Have Access to Collaborate with Other Member Businesses and Gain Their Expertise

All members receive access to our membership network and knowledge base, with regular meetings, opportunities for collaboration, spotlights, forums, discounts and special offers. We work hard to support our members in many ways. We know how isolating it can be working hard on your own business. Joining our membership offers the opportunity to join like-minded local business owners and share expertise, ask questions, build and improve your business.

Interested in joining? Just click the link and complete our application form: