Teatime Tidbits: News to Go
A scone-friendly zone. Move over Little Italy and Chinatown. Virgin Atlantic Airways is backing a campaign to rechristen a section of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village as “Little Britain.” The campaign is the brainchild of Nicky Perry and Sean Kavangh-Dowsett, the British entrepreneurial couple whose restaurant Tea & Sympathy and adjoining gift shop and fish & chips eatery are among nearly two dozen British-owned businesses in the vicinity. The Web site (http://www.campaignforlittlebritain.com) features a petition that will close on May 1 when the results will be presented to a local community board, and then Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Chris Rossi, Virgin Atlantic vice president of sales and marketing, noted at a press conference earlier this month that the airline was founded at a pub a few blocks from where the event was being held. British singer Joss Stone was on hand to lend support to the cause. Promo magazine reported promotion for the campaign includes a short film on YouTube, and posters with the slogan “What’s one more Queen in the Village.”
Does the TARDIS have business class seating? The city of Cardiff in Wales has “Doctor Who” to thank for a recent surge in tourism. The popular series is filmed in the city, a fact that has helped push it into the top 10 of short-break U.K. destinations, according to TravelSupermarket.com. Fans keen to visit sites where the show and a spinoff, “Torchwood,” are filmed are flocking to Cardiff, which is building a tourism package based on the shows, reported the Web site Outpost Gallifrey. The city features the shows on its Web site home page (http://www.visitcardiff.com), and currently hosts an exhibition, “Doctor Who Up Close,” based on the program.
Branching out. Pupils from the Bradford Girls’ Grammar School in the U.K. recently spent a day working with the marketing and creative team of the Woodland Trust to turn their winning Young Direct Marketing Award entry into a reality. Students Firdaus Kader, Victoria Powne and Helen Tempest created a campaign called “Adopt a Tree,” which was honored by the U.K. Direct Marketing Association. Materials from the campaign for the woodland conservation charity (http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/) will be distributed to senior students and their parents at the winners’ school. “Firdaus, Victoria and Helen achieved something we have never been able to do, which is to make trees ‘cute’ and give them a personality with which young people can identify,” said Phil Shipway, direct marketing manager of the trust, in a DMA statement.
Graduate program. The U.K. is embarking on a new effort to allow international students to stay on in the country for a year to work after they have graduated. Students who have obtained a bachelors degree or higher level qualification in any subject from a university or college in the United Kingdom will be eligible. “Higher education institutions have told us that a staying on scheme will enhance the UK’s attraction as a study destination in what has become an intensely competitive international student market,” said minister for lifelong learning, further and higher education, Bill Rammell, in a statement. For information, visit http://www.dfes.gov.uk/findoutmore.
