BBC Radio 2 host Jeremy Vine has waded into the row over a Herefordshire town’s rebranding, suggesting the town could remove its vowels to take it into the 21st century.

The lunchtime host was joined by architect Bob Ghosh and local resident Chris Barltrop to discuss the controversial Bromyard rebranding project, which includes a backwards ‘D’ on national radio.

There has been widespread local criticism online after the rebranding, part of a £90,000 project aimed at sprucing the town up and enticing tourists was made public.

Host Jeremy Vine said there has been a big move in music to remove vowels from names, and suggested that perhaps the town could remove its vowels to bring it into line with the 21st century.

The group behind the designs say the response to the project, which also includes signage and bringing life to historic town alleyways and the bypass subway with artwork, has been ‘overwhelmingly positive’.

K4 Architects said they had been encouraged by the response to the public exhibition held at the Conquest Theatre in Tenbury Road, followed by another four days at its town centre office.

Designs will be finalised in due course.

Last year’s boom in British summer holidays was not enough to save thousands of tourism businesses, despite increased domestic bookings to popular places such as Cornwall and the Yorkshire Dales.

A survey by the Tourism Alliance of 1,927 tour operators, hotels, attractions, language schools and other travel and hospitality businesses serving foreign tourists found that 11% believe they are “very likely to fail” in 2022, and a total of 41% think they are “quite likely to fail”.

The first three months of 2022 are looking bleak, with cancellations soaring in the wake of the Omicron variant. Almost a third of businesses surveyed have lost at least half of bookings made for domestic holidays between January and March this year.

A planned new restaurant for TV personality Jeremy Clarkson’s Oxfordshire farm has been refused permission.

Diddly Squat Farm, in Chadlington, is the site of the former Top Gear host’s Amazon Studios series, Clarkson’s Farm.

A West Oxfordshire District Council (WODC) planning sub-committee declined the plan on Monday.

Clarkson said it would enhance farming and tourism in the area and the refusal meant a “very bad day for farming”.

When asked how frustrated he was, he said: “Very, and so will all the local farmers.”

Planning officers said the proposal to renovate a lambing shed into a restaurant was out of keeping with the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

The shed was built in 2020 after a new flock of sheep was bought to diversify the farm business.

It has now been merged with another local farmer’s flock, the council said.

But council officers said the building has since been used, without planning permission, as a cafe and a bar area.

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It was supposed to be the summer to rekindle the joy of the great British holiday, with demand for 2022 domestic breaks already rising. But hospitality staff in many tourist hotspots beg to differ, saying they have suffered a barrage of complaints from “impatient” visitors and “Tripadvisor warriors”.

Restaurant and hotel owners said visitors were regularly complaining about slow service amid high demand, and that some had seemingly struggled to adapt to the change from their usual all-inclusive getaway abroad.

Susan Briggs, the director of the Tourism Network in North Yorkshire, said businesses had reported an increase in grumpy customers who were “more demanding and even abusive when they can’t get a table in a restaurant or have unrealistic expectations of service”.

A new Cornish cycling route that takes in some of the UK’s most spectacular coastal scenery as well as atmospheric old industrial works and bronze age monuments is due to open in the autumn.

Called the West Kernow Way, the 150-mile route begins and ends in Penzance and is designed to take four days to complete.

The charity Cycling UK has been working for more than a year on developing the project, plotting a route using bridleways, byways and quiet stretches of country road.

Highlights will include Land’s End, the most westerly place in mainland England, the Lizard Point, the most southerly spot of mainland Britain, and the island castle and gardens of St Michael’s Mount.

Other attractions include the tin mine engine houses that cling to the cliffs at Botallack and the open air Minack Theatre, which perches above the Atlantic.

Cyclists will also be able to visit the extraordinary standing stones Mên-an-Tol and Carn Brea, the hilltop castle and monument.

Sophie Gordon, Cycling UK’s campaigns officer, said: “The landscape has so much to offer, from the natural beauty of Lizard Point to the wilds of the north coast, but we want to dive into the culture and history of Cornwall too.

A new website aims to help climate conscious travellers make more-informed holiday choices by calculating the carbon costs of British breaks and even day trips in response to the increase in domestic tourism during the pandemic.

Natural Britain, which launched in July, wants to become the go-to website for ethically-run travel in the UK, and claims to be the first company in the country to offer carbon labelling – a calculation of the carbon dioxide emitted – for every part of the trip.

Natural Britain hopes to appeal to the growing number of outdoor enthusiasts, many of whom have taken on new challenges or found a fresh appreciation for nature in 2020. Itineraries include a cycle tour of the Cotswolds, sky-running in Snowdonia and sea-kayaking in Scotland, and activity sessions and accommodation can also be booked separately. It hopes to feature 35 experiences by the end of the year, increasing to about 100 in 2021.

The property agency Savills, which advises landowners moving into the tourism and leisure sectors, says the pandemic has accelerated existing holiday trends, with many more farmers and estates diversifying their businesses to cater for increasing numbers of tourists opting for camping, glamping sites and holiday cottages in the UK.

Simon Foster, Savills’ director of tourism, says that these are likely to be long-lasting changes: “Our view is that it’s here to stay,” he says.

“People are looking for somewhere safe, secure, secluded, where they can hunker down for a week, rather than staying in a big resort or a big caravan park or hotel.

“That trend for rural holiday accommodation, whether it be glamping or cottages, has gone through the roof in the last month or two – and will continue to remain strong.”

James Smith from the Cool Camping website estimates that there are twice as many new camping sites this year than last, with many of them on farmland. “Places are so booked up that people are struggling to find anywhere,” he says. “There are a lot of businesses that are seeing this as an opportunity and setting up sites pretty quickly.”

Mobile carrier O2 is working to eradicate mobile signal ‘not-spots’ by extending 4G coverage at 91,000 areas across the UK – including 400 tourist destinations.

O2 says it wanted to ensure people would have adequate coverage as the country prepared for a ‘staycation boom’ from July 4 – as coronavirus-easing lockdown measures are eased and tourism firms allowed to re-open. 

A number of National Trust and English Heritage sites have been included in the 4G signal boost including the ruins of St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury. 

Rural connectivity and fixing ‘not spots’ in less populated areas is a big issue and comes as part of government measures to improve national connectivity.

The firm claims to now have 4G coverage in over 18,000 regional towns, villages and hamlets – which also reduces network congestion and improves download speeds. 

Public health experts and officials have warned that the idea of “air bridge” links between the UK and overseas holiday destinations may prove impossible this summer, amid continued concern over how they could operate safely.

A number of Conservative MPs are pushing for air bridges – mutual agreements with other countries to allow travellers to fly in and out without coronavirus quarantine restrictions – ahead of the imposition of the UK’s 14-day quarantine system next week.

The home secretary, Priti Patel, is to announce how the quarantine process will work in a statement to the Commons on Wednesday, and is coming under significant pressure from Tory MPs to signal a willingness to implement air bridges amid fears over the new measures’ effect on the tourism and hospitality sectors.

Writing in Wednesday’s Telegraph alongside the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, Patel said: “We owe it to the victims of Covid-19 to impose quarantine,” arguing it was crucial and tourism would be up and running faster if tough measures were taken.

But progress has so far been slow. When the government announced the quarantine plans on 22 May, air bridges were mentioned among “further options” to be explored. There have been no updates since.