We're falling between two stools over tourism

Two factors bring it to a head this week.

The first is the letter from the Chamber of Commerce and Tourism to Rother's head of regeneration over council plans to axe the Town Guide and replace it with a single folded information sheet.

The second is the proposal before Monday's Rother cabinet meeting to spend more than 30,000 installing electronic information kiosks in the De La Warr Pavilion.

The sour taste of compromise taints both.

The chamber letter is remarkable both for its depth and for its outspoken approach.

Even more remarkable is that it is over the signature of chamber president Ainsley Gill. Mr Gill is a mild-mannered man. The tone of his letter reveals the extent of the chamber's concern.

The efficiency and virtually limitless scope of computer technology to provide instant access to information should not be under-valued. Today's IT is a powerful tool.

But it is not without its limitations.

The abject failure of Rother's Destination Management System to produce bookings for Bexhill accommodation-providers is a clear warning not to place complete faith in IT to provide solutions.

The Town Guide, on the other hand, is tried and tested. It produces results.

Failure to attract a new operator when the former TIC managers retired was down to a number of factors, including the parsimonious 30,000 a year offered by Rother.

But continued absence of a TIC also reflected on the town's traders, none of whom could find a way of combining operating a TIC viably as an adjunct to an existing business.

Such an impasse would surely have been anathema to our enterprising Edwardian forebears who created a prosperous seaside resort out of an empty salt marsh.

Electronic kiosks offer a partial solution.

The proposition pre-supposes that visitors are computer-literate.

Typically, visitors who regularly use computers will have done their internet "homework" BEFORE visiting a destination.

Those for whom computers remain a dark mystery will gain nothing from a confrontation with a Dalek in the pavilion foyer.

For the answers to their questions they will have to ask pavilion staff '“ which makes the absence of a true TIC '“ manned but with all that IT can offer as well '“ even more absurd.

In situations like this there is an irresistible urge to put both parties in a room, lock the door and not release them until they have come up with a workable solution.