EXMOOR’S National Park Centre at Lynmouth Pavilion is celebrating having scooped a gold award in the South West Tourism Awards, just weeks after winning gold in the Devon Tourism Awards as visitor information service of the year.

The national park centres had to close their doors for much of last year due to the Covid pandemic but those at Lynmouth, Dunster and Dulverton are now open again from 10am until 5pm, seven days a week.

They offer expert advice alongside a range of displays, exhibits, resources and merchandise, to bring the story of Exmoor to life and inspire and inform people about the national park.

During lockdown staff were able to update information and develop an online shop – shop.exmoor-

nationalpark.gov.uk. The online shop provides a range of resources from maps, guidebooks, reference books and souvenirs.

To celebrate the awards and the launch of the online shop, anyone using the code CELEBRATE10 at checkout can claim a special ten per cent discount until May 21.

Also available from National Park centres and the online shop are the new Exmoor Explorer walking guides launched earlier this week. This new collection of ten easy walks aim to introduce people to some of the most inspiring places within the National Park.

Dave Wilde, who co-manages the Lynmouth centre, said: “This is the first time we’ve entered the awards and we did so to simply learn as much as we could.

“Having previously been thrilled to win gold in the Devon Tourism Awards, we didn’t even dream of proceeding into the regional awards and coming away with a gold award there, too.

“It is great to have finally re-opened the doors and to see people once again enjoying all that Exmoor has to offer.”

Co-manager Rebecca Jackson added: “We love nothing more than speaking to visitors face-to-face and giving them ideas and inspiration about visiting Exmoor, but we’re aware things are currently a little different. The online shop is therefore an added bonus.”

There were more than 400 entries to the regional tourism awards, sponsored by South West Water, which this year were held online due to the pandemic.