BLACKPOOL'S
famous donkeys have trotted their way into the 21st century - by allowing
seaside tourists to swipe a DEBIT CARD over their saddles.
Instead
of letting the kids down when the hunt for small change in their pocket fails,
parents can instead scan their bank cards or enter their pin numbers into the
seats to go along the Lancashire seaside resort's Golden Mile.
The
decision to give the long-standing family tradition a makeover was taken by
Mark Ineson, owner of Real Donkeys UK, who has sold donkey rides on the seaside
town's beach for almost 20 years.
After
recognising the boom in 'touch and go' payments he teamed up with Barclaycard
to go contactless.
Hoping
to give his business a "much-needed boost", he said: "Over the
years I've had to turn hundreds of kids away because mums and dads don't have
the cash on them to pay for a ride on Dillon and the beach is often the last
place you want to be carrying lots of change.
"So
I approached Barclaycard to see whether they could help solve the problem.
"The
saddle they've come up with means hundreds more people will be able to
experience one of the Great British seaside traditions and have a donkey ride
along the sands.
"It
also shows that, regardless of how traditional your business might be, there
are always new things to trial that can give it a much-needed boost."
Comment:
While
watching BBC Breakfast news this morning, and it mentioned this story, my immediate thought was to check the calendar to see if today’s
date wasn’t April the 1st,
relieved that it wasn’t April the 1st and somehow I hadn’t missed
the last few months of my life, and then
feeling disappointed that my dream that I
was Dr Who was just a dream!, I thought
that this story was very clever and thought provoking, well done to Real Donkeys of Blackpool and
Barclaycard for introducing, although I
do feel it’s a marketing promotion.
