ON Sunday, more than 1,000 runners will take part in the Standard Chartered Jersey Marathon.

A proportion of those taking part in the main race and the relay will be Islanders, but the event also attracts many people from the UK and beyond.

Runners from the UK, the continent and even further afield clearly come to the Island chiefly for the race, but they also qualify as tourists – and, in fact, fall into a sub-category of that group, event-led tourists.

The runners are, of course, entirely welcome as athletes, but we can also be glad that they are coming here because of the money they will spend and the prospect that they might be so impressed by what the Island has to offer that they will return in the future.

Also forging ahead in the event-led tourism stakes is the Branchage Festival, whose organisers must be congratulated on the conclusion of another very successful, innovative and impressive long weekend. Crowned by a cast reunion for Bergerac and made possible by a combination of committed sponsors and enthusiastic volunteers, Branchage is firmly established as an example of Jersey enterprise at its brilliant best.

In common with the Battle of Flowers, Jersey Live, the International Air Display, the Jersey Boat Show and the Fête de Noué, Branchage does an excellent job of putting Jersey on the map. All those events have the double benefit of making life more interesting and enjoyable for the community as a whole, as well as its visitors.

Other opportunities remain to be exploited. For example, efforts are made to market the Island for activities as diverse as walking, bird-watching, watersports and military history. Jersey’s natural advantages in specialist areas encompassing gastronomy, flora and fauna offer further material for for niche tourism development and potential festivals of varying shapes and sizes.

Today’s disappointing news that the company behind the Grassroots Festival has gone under demonstrates the precariousness of the economic challenge faced by event organisers but should not detract from general enthusiasm for entrepreneurship of the kind it demonstrated by allying new ideas to Jersey’s traditional strengths.

It’s past successes still add weight to the belief that tourism in Jersey is far from dead. The days of the mass visitor market may be over but, as the Jersey Marathon (previewed in a supplement with today’s JEP) and Branchage have once again demonstrated, many small and specialised contributions add up and help to ensure that it remains an essential pillar of our economy and way of life.