Boring and Dull form strategic partnership

Jeremy Hobson: Not every story we bring you here on the Marketplace Morning Report is scintillating. Sometimes we have to tell you about things that are dull and boring — which brings me to this next item. Residents in two towns — halfway across the world from one another — are putting together a tourism partnership. The towns are a Scottish village named Dull, and a small Oregon town named Boring.

Marketplace’s Stephen Beard has this exciting report.

Stephen Beard: Nothing much happens in Dull. It’s a small hamlet. Some eighty people live there quietly. Until, that is, one local resident went on a cycling tour of Oregon and made an exciting discovery: She came across the town of Boring. Her pulse quickened. She hit on the idea of twinning the two, bringing Dull and Boring together.

Scottish tourism chief Richard Pinn has eagerly endorsed the idea, and reckons the story could turn into a tourist attraction for the whole of Scotland.

Richard Pinn: Dull in a way, Dull and Boring even, is a way of using that message to say: look the name is here. It’s quirky. It catches people’s imagination. And the reality is just the opposite. Come and find out.

But Mr. Pinn could be playing with fire — Dull and Boring may be quirky but they may not be the best way to sell Scotland.

In London, I’m Stephen Beard for Marketplace.