The NNTA had voiced concerns that the north of the county could be left isolated by local government reorganisation and the disbanding of Berwick Borough Council.

Ruth McNeely, NNTA chairman, said: "With the demise of the borough council much of the focus of our work in 2009 has been ensuring that tourism in north Northumberland does not slip and become the Forgotten Kingdom as opposed to the Secret Kingdom.

"We are doing a lot of networking to ensure the voice of tourism in north Northumberland remains very strong."

She also wondered whether the large tourism departments of One NorthEast, Northumberland County Council and Northumberland Tourism could be justified.

Mrs McNeely explained: "While on one hand you could say that it's wonderful that tourism has so much funding allocated to it, we are concerned that because of high levels of staffing within these three sectors, perhaps the money that could be spent on tourism development is going to be spend on salaries and not necessarily going where it should."

The NNTA's publication of a new visitor guide, 'Discover the secrets of north Northumberland and the Borders', had been a great success with about 40,000 copies issued.

Mrs McNeely said: "We printed 25,000 and completely under-estimated how many we needed so half way through the season we had another 20,000 printed.

"We have about 40,000 in circulation at the moment and the plan is to reproduce it again for part of this season so we hope there will be funds for that.

"Our accommodation providers tell us that the copies left in rooms nearly always disappear with the guests so hopefully they will keep them and use them to book up again for a return visit."

She said the Market Towns Initiative, which is supporting towns including Berwick, Wooler and Seahouses, was at last beginning to show some benefits after a slow start.

"It's been a slow process but towards the end of last year we started to see some great projects coming in, like the Wooler cycling hub and the regeneration of Seahouses town centre.

"Lots of other projects are also starting to get developed and we hope these will come together to keep north Northumberland a focus of tourism."

Sarah Woodford, Market Towns officer, told the AGM that improving the townscapes of Berwick, Wooler and Seahouses was one of the ideas they had come up with to improve the visitors experience.

She explained: "Visitors generally have a good time when they come here but we are looking at ways of improving their experience, one of which is by improving the townscape.

"We have been working for three months with the Seahouses Development Trust and others looking to see what improvements can be made around the car park, tourist information centre and public toilets and hopefully will soon come up with a scheme."

The NNTA had once more held a number of familiarisation visits to top tourist attractions but, with the exception of a visit to see the Chillingham Wild Cattle, they had been poorly attended.

Membership of the NNTA now stands at about 120, a slight increase on last year.

The executive committee had seen several changes, with a number of long-serving members standing down and an injection of fresh faces replacing them.

Mrs McNeely, who is in her third year as chairman, said it was also her intention to stand down from the post at the end of the year.