About BRADA and www.britishresorts.co.uk

The website is produced and sponsored by Full Picture and offered as a membership benefit to our 63 local authority, 8 tourist board and 22 commercial members. The site is designed as a one stop shop giving the public, national press, trade partners, students and other interested parties information on, and links to, a wealth of information regarding many of the UK's most popular built and rural inland and coastal destinations. A password protected members section also contains items of news, offers and other information, which will assist the membership to maintain and promote a successful UK domestic tourism industry.

The Association originally formed in 1921, has developed from a traditional local government association, to become a national body that operates as a trade association representing the wider interest of local authority sponsored tourism. As a consequence the membership now includes local government authorities of all types and sizes from across much of the UK, regional and local tourist boards and commercial organisations, who are either suppliers of services to the public or to the industry itself. Despite the popular misconception associated with the organisation's name, it is not exclusively in the business of promoting the interests of major built coastal resorts. While the majority of the member authorities are coastal, many are major rural destinations. We also have some significant inland, rural and built destinations in membership. The common link between all members being an engrained tradition of hosting visitors and therefore a tendency towards a much higher local social and economic dependency on a healthy tourism industry. For facts and figures on the UK’s domestic tourism industry click here.

The work of the Association covers a wide range of areas. Although originally set up and run as a lobbying and advisory body, since it's reorganisation in 1993 the Association has expanded its offer to include a wide range of added value services. These vary from cost effective national advertising campaigns, through PR and press initiatives, like this website and British Resorts & Destinations 2008, its accompanying hardcopy travel trade and press publication to employee benefits like low cost travel insurance. A snapshot of the range of the Association's work can be found here.

The operation of the Association continues largely along local government lines. However, all routine procedures have been streamlined to ensure that the Association is a proactive and can lead, rather than follow the national debate. A full-time secretariat based in Southport and consisting of a Director and two members of staff run the day to day business of the Association. The host authority Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council provides an Honorary Secretary and Honorary Treasurer who assist the secretariat, mainly with personnel and financial issues. Two main committees advise on practical delivery and set the strategic policy. The officer based Officers Advisor Committee deals with delivery and advises the Elected member based Policy Committee on background to policy issues. Both committees are elected from within the membership every two years and both meet approximately 6 to 8 weeks apart, three times a year in London and once concurrently at annual conference. The Association also elects a Chairman from within the membership of Policy Committee who acts as the senior internal representative of the Association. Although the Association operates in the often highly politically charged environment of local and national government; it functions on a totally non-political basis. This is illustrated by the range of senior political figures that have accepted the appointment of Vice President of the Association. One Vice President from the main Westminster party of the day is also elected to act as President and head the Association. For details of the President and Vice Presidents, click here.

Membership of the Association is open to all local authorities in the UK, to all UK tourist boards and to other bodies and commercial organisations whose objectives match those of the Association. A modest annual subscription is levied which is calculated on the basis of the size of the authority and the scale of its tourism interests or the size of the company and the commercial benefit membership can bring. The subscriptions for a local authority range from £314 for a small Town Council to £2,199 for a large major resort based authority. Commercial membership subscriptions range from £645 to £2,199 and National and Regional Tourist Boards are charged a flat rate of £513. For more details of membership benefits click here.