CAROLYN CUSTERSON was warned not to touch Torbay with a barge pole.

At the time she was pondering over moves to take up the challenge of making Torbay's tourism industry fit for the 21st century. A 'challenge' to put it mildly.

She had set up her Close Focus tourism marketing consultancy 11 years ago and was now being asked to use her skills and expertise to revitalise and re-shape the English Riviera's holiday trade before it went down the plughole once and for all.

Before her was an industry which was fragmented, with people not exactly pulling in the same direction, in-fighting and power-wrangling.

For instance, there were no fewer than 14 groups, organisations and bodies and 1,200 businesses wrapped up in tourism in the resort.

She admits: "Everybody told me how difficult it was going to be. My tourism colleagues said Torbay 'could be the destination where you fail because of the resistance to change'.

"I was told 'you will not make a difference' and 'you will never get them all in the same room together'.

But Carolyn added: "I am a Sagittarius and I love a challenge."

She accepted the chance to act as a consultant to Torbay Council last March. Her contract ends at the end of September.

Were her colleagues right about the challenge that lay ahead? Yep!

Carolyn, who has worked on different projects throughout the South West, is a Business Link tourism adviser and is on the board of directors for South West Tourism, says: "The Torbay project has been my biggest for three years. It has been a challenge."

She discovered an industry that was far from united with 'differing views and a failure for everybody to be focusing on the real issue which was a destination in decline'.

She added: "Everybody had their own views and their own egos. Everybody had taken their eye off the ball."

She says she had to use 'shock tactics' to prove to people that the tourism industry was facing serious problems.

"Research we have done suggests that the destinations are on the tipping point," says Carolyn.

"It could go any way which is why we have to get our act together quite quickly."

Her plans have been radical and have already faced opposition in some quarters, including proposals which threaten the future of tourism information centres.

But her blueprint has been accepted as policy by the council. Tourism will now be driven by a private/public partnership company which should be up and running by the start of October with £500,000 backing from the Town Hall over the next five years.

She accepts: "The strategy is proposing some major shake-ups."

But she adds: "If you are to seriously tackle the decline you have to market the English Riviera more strongly.

"Marketing budgets are being cut as in other parts of the country.

"The council is still going to back the industry, but it means you have to decide how you are going to spend the money.

"There is too much money being spent on visitors when they are in the resort and not enough being spent on getting them here. You have to attract new blood, get people hooked and get them coming back."

She says people need to remember just how important tourism is to the Bay.

Carolyn says: "Tourism has been in the Bay for hundreds and hundreds of years. It is a significant employer and will always be important.

"You cannot dismiss it. Tourism and Torbay go together. The sooner everybody recognises that the better rather than seeing it as a Cinderella industry. It is seen as seasonal, low paid. For residents it is an inconvenience."

She believes everything is going to plan at the moment.

"I am winning the battle but I am exhausted," says Carolyn.

"I wake up in the middle of the night dreaming about budgets and Brixham."

She has been surprised how politics sometimes gets in the way.

She says: "The politics has been hard. I always naively assumed that tourism was apolitical but it is not.

"A lot of the associations have their own egos and agendas. It is time for everybody to look at the bigger picture."

That just may include the Torbay Hospitality Association...

The kind of behaviour which has to be a thing of the past if tourism is to thrive again in the Bay was there for all to see with headlines in the Herald Express only last week.

Demands for an extraordinary meeting are being made amid concerns about the way the THA has been run. The row even reached ridiculous heights when police were called in amid claims of harassment.

Carolyn experienced first hand the antics of some people when she gave a talk to the THA executive.

She admits: "The THA attitude was unhelpful. I was made to feel rather unwelcome. Consultants are always made to feel unwelcome. You have to be thick-skinned. You are like an alien from space being dropped in."

She also adds: "What is important is that in business people have the confidence to speak out and must be entitled to their own opinion."

If the THA is not careful I fear it may be doomed.

But Carolyn says: "I hope the THA does not go under. They are linked to the British Hospitality Association and when running properly brings great credit to the destination."

But she says all organisations have to be run positively and professionally.

"If an organisation cannot deliver those things you would question what place they have in the future."

She insists the new tourism company is not there to conquer the Bay.

"It will not eradicate all these organisations," says Carolyn.

"They are integral to the make up of the industry. It is for everybody to recognise that there is one common goal. You have to try and reach out to them and get the message to them.

"The biggest passion I have is the need for reducing the duplication of effort and the wastage that goes on."

She is adamant: "If you do not unify you will not tackle the decline. I am passionate about tourism and I feel I am getting there.

"I have got everybody in the same room."

Let's hope the room includes the THA where certain people should be showing, let's say, a more grown-up attitude and throwing their hat into the Torbay tourism ring rather than boxing outside it.

I have a feeling Carolyn just may succeed — with or without the THA.