SURFING is high on the agenda for council officials in their latest bid to boost tourism.

But there will be no waves - the only thing Preston and South Ribble council will be surfing is the Internet after they both logged on to the worldwide web to promote their boroughs.

They signed up with Newsquest Lancashire, the Citizen's parent company, and now have an electronic brochure which can be seen throughout the world. The websites contain masses of information on everything ranging from places to visit to the history of the boroughs.

And the potential for people seeing or "hitting" the pages is immense - in May nearly 450,000 looked at the Newsquest site, and this jumped to over 600,000 last month.

A spokesman for Preston council said: "This is the way forward. We're very pleased to be part of it and think Newsquest have done a very good job.

"We hope it will encourage people to come to the town. It will be interesting to see how many hits we get."

Attractions featured on the two borough's sites include the Guild Hall and Harris Museum in Preston and Worden Park in Leyland.

Newsquest's New Media Development Manager Jane Law said: "Both councils have taken to promoting themselves worldwide on the web site.

"They thought it was the right place to advertise local attractions - a cost effective way of promoting themselves.

"We're an established site which already has a large number of local authorities on the tourism section."

So to see what's happening in Preston and South Ribble check out the web site at http://www.newsquest.co.uk/

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