Porthemmet Beach hoax

The Porthemmet Beach hoax was a spoof website that was set up to advertise the "best beach in Cornwall" in 2007. The site claimed that although Cornish people would often pretend not to know it, hiding its true location was an in-joke among locals. It encouraged visitors to say that they were an "emmet"; a person who loved Cornwall.
However Emmet is a Cornish dialect word for ant, and has come to be used in Cornwall as a derisory nickname for tourists and visitors, He denied his motives were "part of a wider agenda to promote Cornish nationalism by poking fun at some of the millions of tourists who help sustain the county's economy"; it was actually about the humour in sending visitors to Cornwall "off to find an imaginary beach".
Reaction
The Porthemmet hoax sparked a mixed response from various groups. More than 2,000 people joined its page on Facebook. However VisitCornwall, the Cornwall tourism board, criticised the hoax. Others thought it reflected badly on rural communities that depended on outside revenues for survival.<ref name=indep/>

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