Use Giants of English Literature to Create Your Own Profitable Masterpiece | Travel Research Online

For you and many of your clients, the names in my top story read like a list of old friends. You, and they, will have studied them at school, college and university and then watched them as they appear on Masterpiece. With all the groundwork done, you will find that they need little persuasion when it comes to discovering the sources of literary inspiration and making visits to On Location sites of their favourites. To heighten the interest, we need to blend in privately owned castles, stately home and gardens, a pub lunch here and an afternoon tea there, and choral evensong in one of our magnificent cathedrals.

The UK has the product experiences. The target audience is ON YOUR DOORSTEP. The missing link? YOU, the travel agent with the skills to make it happen as you convert popular fiction into profitable reality.

Tours of Your Bookshelf Look here and discover how much-loved fiction can be converted into profitable reality from British classics by the great legends of writing such as Jane Austen, The Brontës, Lewis Carrol, Agatha Christie, Colin Dexter, Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dick Francis, Thomas Hardy, James Herriot, Laurie Lee, C S Lewis, Beatrix Potter, William Shakespeare, Bram Stoker, JRR Tolkien, and William Wordsworth.

Year of The Bookworm Here’s something for your Reading Circle and other literary contacts. Offer them the chance to spend 2-days near Royal Windsor at the Henley on Thames Literary Festival (28th September-6th October) before 3 or 4 more in the Cotswolds at the Cheltenham Literature Festival (2nd-11th October) which hosts some of the world’s greatest writers and thinkers.

Downton Abbey Much to the surprise of many travel planners, Highclere Castle’s summer public opening season is shorter than you might think. It runs from Sunday 12th July through to Tuesday 8th September and they are closed on Fridays and Saturdays. Let’s talk about a customised above and below stairs tour for a couple of fans cruising or flying in/out of the UK this summer.

Sherlock Holmes and Alice Add something a bit special to a literary-themed UK tour. 30-minutes west of Southampton, in the New Forest, you’ll find the final resting place of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes. 5-minutes further on, you’ll discover the grave of Alice Hargreaves, née Liddell, the inspiration for the Alice in Wonderland stories.

Now, That’s What I Call A Wedding Cake! This 12m high ceramic sculptural pavilion in the form of a wedding cake is a major new Rothschild Foundation commission from celebrated Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos. Part sculpture, part architectural garden folly, it celebrates festivity and marriage, inspired by the exuberant Baroque buildings and decorative ceramic traditions of Lisbon, where Vasconcelos lives and works.

Foodie Heaven in North Devon Talk about food in England’s West Country and people think of Cornwall. Wrong! Northern Devon has more Michelin stars, world Foodie champions (chocolate, ice cream, marmalade, oils), as well as an amazing network of Farmer’s Markets, and Food Festivals. They celebrate food for is sustainability, locality and quality – from seaweed and fish to meats and vegetables. Find out more….

An Artist’s Village The Watts Gallery is a wonderful Arts & Crafts gem between London and Southampton. The former home of the great Victorian artist G F Watts, he was the first British painter to have a solo exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1884. Known as England’s Michelangelo, he influenced Rossetti, Picasso and former President Obama.

A Pot Pourri Of Pleasant Surprises            This fragrant, colour-filled tour includes visits to 13th century, moated Hever Castle, Churchill’s former home at Chartwell and the fabulous Collector Earl’s Garden at Arundel Castle. Chichester Cathedral’s contemporary art collection, a touch of Jane Austen and a visit to the RHS flagship garden at Wisley complete this leisurely swing through the south of England.

Travelling through Time     This tour takes you on a fascinating walking tour of Winchester, inspired by the English Romantic poet John Keats before heading for 2-nights in Salisbury where your journey through time will include prehistoric Stonehenge, the quintessentially 18th-century Mompesson House townhouse and Choral Evensong in spectacular Salisbury Cathedral. The final night is in London.

Paull Tickner, owner of U.K-based Custom GB, is known for his expertise in creating and operating imaginative, value-added tours of Great Britain and Ireland. Visit his website at www.customgb.co.uk or email him at ptickner@customgb.co.uk.