April Fools Day Going Green

One of the south west’s best known conference centres played its biggest ever April’s Fool’s joke…….and managed to convince local people and customers that it was a genuine move to help the local environment.

The Riviera International Conference Centre at Torquay posted a series of notices around the venue advising the public that it was going to paint the outside of its impressive sea-front building green in an attempt to progress its aim to gain Gold status in the national Green Tourism Business Scheme.

The Centre became the first conference and leisure venue in Britain to gain Silver status in the scheme last year and is extremely keen to become the first to gain Gold.

Artists impressions and notices of the new green look were put up early on the morning of Sunday April 1st explaining why the work was being carried out and apologising to anyone who thought the Centre might be going a little over the top.

But fear not, the notices were taken down by mid day and there wasn’t a paint brush to be seen. It was an April Fools joke and one which really had the town well and truly fooled.

Managing director Barry Cole explained: “We are genuinely committed to Green Tourism and are aiming to gain the Gold award as soon as possible. The staff work extremely hard and it’s always good to have a little fun occasionally so we decided to play an April Fools joke.

We put up notices around the Centre on the Sunday morning and left them in position until mid day. However, it didn’t take too long for the penny to drop and people realised we were playing an April Fool’s joke and they saw the funny side,” Barry added.

The Green Tourism Business Scheme encourages companies across the country to change for the good by taking practical environmental measures to enable businesses to reduce their environmental impact; improve the management of any resources they use such as energy and water and increase their marketing potential for a market place with an ever growing environment conscious.”

The Riviera International Conference Centre was recently chosen by the Market and Coastal Towns Association for its annual conference as a thank you for the green efforts it has been making and Barry Cole believe many other organisations will follow the lead and support the Centre.