Jersey - Nowhere land?

Yet again last weekend, I turned to the travel section of one of the national daily papers to find a fantastic article on the best places to surf in Britain – and once again there’s no mention of Jersey.

The week before there was a feature on the best places to enjoy a short break and minimise your carbon footprint. As usual there was plenty of coverage for Paris, Dublin & Amsterdam. Jersey must come to the top of the carbon-friendly pile, with a short flying time and access available by low-carbon ferries, but again the island fails to register on the travel editor’s radar.

It’s been niggling away at me for some time that Jersey, literally, seems to fall between the two stalls of ‘Britain’ and ‘Abroad’. As far as the domestic holiday scene is concerned, presumably Jersey is overlooked because it is not part of the British mainland and is not accessible by road. This despite the fact that it’s quicker to get here from most parts of the UK than it is to reach Cornwall.

When it comes to the overseas angle I can just hear these journalists saying, ‘Well Jersey isn’t really abroad is it? It’s part of Britain and not really culturally different enough.’

So how do we address this? I know Mike Tait and his team at Jersey Tourism battle hard to get our little voice heard, but it’s a tough task. We simply have to keep plugging away and reminding them that when it comes to features on the British Isles we need to be included.

Of course, sometimes, it can work in our favour. Last week Mothercare published a survey which rubbished British holiday resorts, describing them generally as a rip-off. Again, the Channel Islands were excluded – perhaps this time to our benefit.

It really is a case of ‘Nearer to France, closer to home.’ In other words floating in the middle of nowhere!