Skegness hits back after seaside fave is named among world’s worst tourist destinations — alongside terrorist hotspots, war zones and Pyongyang, North Korea
BATHED in gaudy neon, party town Skegness has long relished its affectionate nickname Skeg Vegas.
But shockingly, as we reported yesterday, it has been lumped in with terror-plagued Syria, war-torn Somalia and rogue nuclear state North Korea in a Top Ten of worst holiday destinations.
Travel site Destination Tips also said of the Lincolnshire seaside town: “Once thought of as quaint . . . Skegness is now a pile of dirt bordering the North Sea with a rundown amusement park idly resting on the land.”
No wonder the folk here in the kiss-me-quick birthplace of Butlin’s are not happy campers.
Shaking her head in disbelief, pier manager Gabriella Wilkinson, 23, whose grandfather bought Skegness Pier in the 1970s, blasts the comparisons to war zones as “pure lies”.
She insists: “Skeggy is a resort for all ages where generations of the same family keep coming year after year.
“They wouldn’t come back if it was as bad as a war zone, would they?”
Blaming the jibes on “snobbery”, she adds: “Many of our visitors stay in caravans, people who holiday in places like Mauritius look down on that.”
Generations of the same family keep coming year after year. They wouldn’t come back if it was as bad as a war zone, would they?
In fact, much-loved Skeggy — a favourite destination for The Sun’s £9.50 holidays — is really on the up.
Some four-and-a-half million of us flock to the east coast’s jaunty answer to Blackpool every year, that’s up 11 per cent on 2009.
And we keep on coming back to enjoy the clean sandy beaches, tasty fish and chips, ice cream on the promenade and the many attractions of this great-value resort.
In 2015, Coleen Rooney, known for her love of luxury holidays, spent a weekend here with her sons in a Butlin’s chalet.
Margaret Thatcher and 19th-century poet Lord Tennyson both holidayed here too.
It has beaten the Club Med boom and countless recessions, so Skeggy can easily see off the online sniping.
But no wonder Mayor Dick Edginton is outraged that his town has ended up in Destination Tips’ horror ten.
He called the comparisons to Stalinist North Korea with its concentration camps “absolutely offensive”.
So what is Skegness really like?
As someone who has travelled to Syria, Somalia and North Korea, I never thought my hostile environment training might be needed for Skegness.
And emerging from its station, I can confirm there are no rooftop snipers or jihadi death squads.
All is tranquil bar the seagulls squawking around the town’s famous Jolly Fisherman statue. It featured in a 1920s railway poster imploring day-trippers to come and enjoy the resort’s “bracing” North Sea breezes.
When I arrive, it’s not so much bracing as chuffing freezing, with a blanket of fog creeping off the Fenlands.
Author Bill Bryson described Skeggy — population 19,579 — as “the most traditional of any English seaside resort I had encountered” in his 2015 book The Road to Little Dribbling.
Strolling around, he noted “an old-fashioned store called Alison’s, where you could buy the kinds of clothes your grandparents used to wear, and beyond it was a selection of charity shops selling the actual clothes your grandparents used to wear”.
Passing Alison’s, the flashing lights of amusement arcades, shuttered bingo halls, welcoming pubs and enticing chippies, I enter the Embassy Theatre.
Tourism adviser Linda Wilde, 59, is busy taking bookings for the summer. X Factor winner Joe McElderry starring in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a highlight.
Mum-of-two Linda tells me: “We have the highest concentration of caravans of any town in Europe.
“They keep coming back because we’re a clean, traditional resort, that’s good value and has a lovely clean beach that’s got Blue Flag status. And there’s so much to do.”
There is a model village, the fantasy island park, an aquarium, seal sanctuary, bowling, karting, swimming, crazy golf and, of course, donkey rides.
In a meadow on the edge of town, Chris Epton is feeding carrots to his 50 donkeys, which will start giving kids £2.50 rides again at Easter.
The third-generation “donkey proprietor” says: “The truth is not everyone wants to go abroad. They want a good value British holiday.
“And who doesn’t love a donkey? It’s something different for children used to playing on computers and Xboxes.”
James Gilbert, 31, Head of Tourism at East Lindsey District Council, tells me: “Skegness still has the kiss-me-quick atmosphere because a significant number of people still want that traditional British seaside experience. And we’re really proud of that.
“At the same time Skegness is reinvigorating itself and broadening out with things like the SO arts festival, which is one of the biggest cultural events in the area.
“Visitor numbers and spending are going up year on year.”
In 2015 tourism was worth £584.5million to the town, 33 per cent up on 2009.
Once an old Viking settlement and later a small port, Skeggy took off as a tourist resort with the arrival of the railway in 1875.
By 1921 more than 450,000 people a year were visiting on day-trips alone.
In the following decade the town built pretty gardens, boating lakes and swimming baths.
During “Wakes Weeks” entire factories would shut down for the summer holidays with workers decamping en masse from Derby, Nottingham and Leicester for a seaside break.
Then, in October 1935, South African William “Billy” Butlin began clearing 200 acres of turnip fields to make way for his new holiday camp, and Skeggy’s Hi-De-Hi! image was forged.
The Sixties saw the advent of cheap Mediterranean package deals, but Butlin’s modernised and still prospers.
Almost 400,000 guests visited Skeggy’s Butlin’s last year, many for family packages where shows by Britain’s Got Talent winners Diversity are popular.
It has branched out to live music weekends with acts including The Stranglers and Boomtown Rats.
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All out-of-season seaside resorts are a little forlorn, but Wolfies Wine Bar on the seafront is full of good cheer.
It offers an £8.99 gourmet burger night — with an extra kid’s meal an additional 99p — washed down with a £3.70 pint of Carling.
Manager Bryony Liversidge, 24, says: “People like a drink but it doesn’t get rowdy. This is a family resort where people who work hard all year come for a well-earned break.”
The Cod & Cockerel chippy nearby is doing a brisk trade in delicious £5.40 portions of haddock and chips, wrapped in copies of The Sun.
Worker Nicola Peltell, 28, like all of the young people I speak to here, has no intention of leaving Skeggy.
She says: “I went to London once but it was too hectic. I’m quite happy here.”
Mum-of-one Andrea Richardson, 47, who has worked in the chippy for 25 years, adds: “The last two years have been the busiest ever. In the summer it’s jammed with people.
“If people like this website are trying to blacken our name then it’s not working very well.”
Yellow Bellies — as Lincolnshire folk are known — do not take themselves too seriously and can laugh off misplaced jibes. It is just as well.
For Skeggy to be compared to jihadi infested hell-holes and a pariah communist state has been a kick in the cobblers for a fantastic resort that is very much on the up.
Viva Skeg Vegas!