A FREE web service which can generate email newsletters is credited with bringing business worth #2m to the North Wales tourism industry.

Tourism Partnership North Wales invested #15,000 in info4-u.com - the marketing email initiative conceived by Kevin Jones of Aberconwy Web Solutions.

Initial feedback from the accommodation alone suggests the service, which won the e-commerce category at last year's Western Mail Business Awards, has injected #2m into the economy.

Tourism operators can access a database of stories and information which they may use in tailor-made emails.

Mr Jones said, "This enables people to have a newsletter that is totally customised to their business, including their own masthead, website and contact details.

"They can either write the articles themselves or go to a library of articles that other people have put in. We have got 270 individual tourism businesses in North Wales using the system - including attractions, activities and accommodation providers.

"We advise people to make them interesting, informative and fun. You can put up to nine articles in each newsletter so there should be something to interest everybody."

The service is intended to be a way to ensure that tourism businesses stay in touch with customers in subsequent years, encouraging them to make a return visit.

Mr Jones said, "Effectively, you create your own database by asking visitors if they wish to receive further information electronically. There is a template for creating newsletters.

"The whole purpose is to cater for people with the most basic of computer skills. Anybody can do this.

"It means that people are coming back to North Wales on a much more regular basis because they are responding to articles.

"Tourism is one of the biggest economic drivers in the region and we want individual businesses to increase their occupancy levels, it makes them more sustainable."

Info4-u.com is backed by Tourism Partnership North Wales.

Development manager Andrew Forfar said, "The pilot was very successful and we have supported it to continue.

"It's also being rolled out to other regions in Wales. It's giving the tourism trade the impetus to collect e-data and use it effectively.

"Technology can be an important marketing tool for somebody running a small bed and breakfast establishment, larger hotels and attractions too.

"One hotel who'd lost a big booking for about 10 rooms sent out a newsletter with a special offer on the day they lost the booking and they filled the rooms up quickly."