Rye’s appeal to overseas visitors is obvious to all who live here, and the number of languages to be heard some days in our small town can be quite astonishing. Visitor numbers to Rye attractions such as the Heritage Centre, the Ypres Tower and East Street Museum and the Rye Art Gallery have been rising and school parties are numerous. The BBC production of Mapp and Lucia showing the town at its most picturesque and the award-winning Kino which attracts regular visitors from a wide catchment area deserve the fulsome praise they receive for raising awareness of Rye’s charms and increasing footfall, but they are not the only boosters.
One active promoter of days out in Rye is JTB World Vacations (of the Japan National Tourism Organisation) which has produced a delightful brochure (shown above) titled Joshitabi in Britain to encourage Japanese women to visit Rye — Joshitabi means women — which is interesting even if you don’t read Japanese. It is one result of a number of trade and press visits to Rye this past year hosted by 1066 Marketing working with Visit Britain Tokyo. Two of Japan’s biggest travel companies now see that Rye features as a place to visit in a number of glossy Japanese magazines.
Another Rye booster is the lead character in Shaun the Sheep, a quirky film which has been showing at the Kino. Shaun and his friends have been gallivanting across the country, courtesy Visit England. Visit 1066 Country has sent us some of Shaun’s selfie photos including this one taken at the Gun Garden.
And then there are the plugs in the national press. In a feature on The Prettiest Streets in Britain the Telegraph gave the No. 1 spot to Rye’s Mermaid Street. The illustration is captioned “Picture perfect: Mermaid Street in Rye, Sussex, is quintessentially English” and the text includes this paragraph:
You can’t shake off the world of EF Benson’s Mapp and Lucia in Rye: tea shops, choirs, am-dram societies and artists, and everyone knows everyone else’s business. People are drawn by the delightful Georgian and half-timbered houses, cobbled streets, pretty harbour and quirky shops. Mermaid Street is storybook lovely, with cobbles running steeply downhill and historic houses either side.
Earlier in the year the Guardian used our annual Scallop Festival to launch a piece called Let’s Go . . . to Rye, East Sussex, claiming Rye is the perfect place for a weekend break:
Next month’s scallop festival is just one reason to visit the pretty seaside town. Exploring the old town’s streets and a trip to the sandy beaches nearby make for an idyllic weekend break, too.
As for comments made in a recently completed 120 page Ypres Tower Visitors’ Book, they make all who have seen them very proud of our museum and town indeed. Written by impressed visitors from 35 countries (every continent) and nearly half the 83 counties in England (as well as from Wales, Scotland and both Irelands), they include plenty of comments about coming back, bringing grandchildren and recommending to friends. An article will be available on the Museum’s website shortly giving details.
Image:JTB World Vacations