A regional daily has teamed up with its local council to produce a bi-annual tourism supplement in a new sales drive.

The 56-page Out and About guide, which is put together by reporters at Stoke-on-Trent paper the Sentinel, has proved popular with readers with around 1,000 extra papers flying off the shelves when it is released.

The guide, worth £35,000 to the paper in advertising revenues alone, includes interviews, features and profiles of around 100 venues written by assistant editor Martin Tideswell and senior journalist Mary-Ann Astle, plus advertising.

Sentinel editor Mike Sassi said the pair worked hard and wrote and designed most of the supplement themselves, working with Staffordshire County Council.

Said Mike:  “It’s a big thing for us. We get a lot of requests for it – as soon as people realise it’s out they want to see it.

“It goes down very well and we sell extra papers off the back of it. In the past we have sold 1,000 extra copies with it.

The front page of the Sentinel's new tourism supplement, drawn up alongside Staffordshire County Council

“We trail it heavily beforehand and it goes across all the titles so we get a good geographical spread for it. We always keep back a big pile as well for people who come into the office for one.”

As well as appearing in the Sentinel, the Out and About guide is distributed through the Staffordshire Newsletter, the Burton Mail, the Leek Post and Times, and the Uttoxeter Post and Times.

It is also distributed door-to-door in Tamworth and Lichfield, and an additional 75,000 copies is printed for the council to distribute through its tourism outlets.

Mike said there were plans to release at least three more of the guides.