More than 60 Cumbrian tourism businesses met in Kendal for a summit conference on innovation.

The day-long event at the Castle Green Hotel, organised by the Cumbria Innovations Platform, featured keynote speakers and workshops aimed at small and medium sized businesses.

It attracted food and drink providers, designers, crafts companies and others involved in the visitor economy supply chain.

Guest speaker Geoff Ramm, the creator and author of Celebrity Service and OMG Marketing, led the series of inspirational talks.

He was joined by the MD of Cumbria Tourism, Gill Haigh; Craig Ivison, head of skills at Cumbria LEP; and Fiona Kilkelly from the Government-funded Innovate UK family.

The European Regional Development funded event was organised to give firms the opportunity to learn how innovation and turning new ideas into reality can create business growth.

Organiser Sarah Allison said: “Our key speakers gave very interesting and informative presentations and our guest speaker, Geoff Ramm, really wowed everyone. During the afternoon we had a series of mini-workshops on tourism related subjects.”

Alison Tordoff, of Fidget Design, said: “The event -affirmed the direction that we were thinking of heading in and has given us confidence to press on and move forward with our future plans.”

Sarah said the most popular workshops were those on sustainable tourism and events.

“This was great to witness and really demonstrated that Cumbria SME’s really are committed to sustainability and addressing climate change.

“We want to help businesses overcome barriers to innovation and to support them in getting their ideas off to a flying start. There will be more events soon to follow on from this.”