Month: February 2015
New funding for a-risk heritage and Coastal Town Teams in England announced
Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) have announced initial detail of a new £3m at-risk heritage fund and a £1m Coastal Community Teams scheme. More information can be accessed at:
Destination Intelligence and other Research and Statistical updates
Three things:
1. The annual Destination Intelligence Survey which is a free British Destinations member’s benefit is about to close for 2014/15. Those who have not yet participated can still do so but you’ll have to be quick Partial data can be submitted and is still useful. (see detail here).
Participation levels have been excellent this year. The individual destination, category group and full membership reports will be published and made available, together with the historic data for the previous decade, on our protected Destination Intelligence site during the last two weeks of March: https://destinationintelligence.wordpress.com/ . The log in detail, for this site is different to the corporate site but is available via a protected page on our corporate website (see the drop down menu from the “About Destination Intelligence” menu tab).
2. We are regularly adding research and statistical reports of national significance to our research and statistics library. Recent offerings include the Economic Downturn and the “Staycation”, Coastal Communities Fund Progress Report and The London Review 2013 -14. These and 50 plus other reports can be found at: http://britishdestinations.net/research-and-statistics/ .
3. The latest offering from the Tourism Intelligence Unit (TIU) at Office for National Statistics (ONS) covers the provisional international passenger survey (international inbound and domestic outbound). It is of particular interest as it covers the third quarter of 2014, July to September, essentially the core summer season months. These ONS figure have already been reported in part by VB and others. However, some may find the purely factual ONS reporting style and the benefits of having access to all the source data in one publication helpful.
The section on oversea travel by UK residents pages 4, 5 and 6 is particularly enlightening; helping perhaps to highlight the potential fragility of the “staycation effect” and the scale of both the market and financial benefits available should we continue to be able to retain and even building on it.: 2015 ONS third quarter provisional IPS results
Entrepreneurs in coastal destinations
The think tank, the Centre for Entrepreneurs, seeks examples of entrepreneurship in action in coastal destinations for possible inclusion in a book to be published this summer: http://britishdestinations.net/599-2/content/entrepreneurship-in-coastal-destinations/
Coastal Communities Fund Update
I have posted an update on the Coastal Communities Fund as a protected page. Its content should be of direct interest to all coastal members, coastal counties, rural coastal and coastal city members in England Wales and Northern Ireland. It may be of some limited general interest to none coastal members.
Please note and adhere to the caveats contained in this briefing note regarding the wider discussion of its content:
http://britishdestinations.net/599-2/content/coastal-communities-fund-update/
Members who have not had or have forgotten the protected page log in should email me here.
Notes from Tourism Alliance Meeting with Helen Grant MP, DCMS Minister for Tourism
The note on a recent Tourism Alliance meeting with Helen Grant MP the DCMS Minister for Tourism, together the content of a Tourism Alliance letter on the subject of sub regional tourism structures in England sent to the Minister at her behest following that meeting, can now be accessed by British Destination members at paragraph 2 of the following protected page:
Members who have not had or who have forgotten the protected page login can request a reminder here.
Please note that having logged in to the protected pages the site will remember you on future visits from the same devices for an indeterminate period and then randomly forget you again when it see fit to do so. This is not the best way to encourage folk to remember an occasionally used login I know but it’s not of my choosing. It may be worth writing it down. The login detail will change again soon to reflect a new membership year.
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Sad news and new items added.
1. Colleagues will be saddened to hear that Sir William Lawrence Bt OBE Chairman of Tourism for All, local Councillor for Stratford-on-Avon and stalwart champion of British tourism, died on 10 February after a brief illness. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
2. VisitBritain have released the monthly figure for December 2014, as this is the last month in 2014 they also effectively give the provisional figure for 2014 as a whole. See link within paragraph 5 on our protected page: http://britishdestinations.net/members-area/content/visitbritain-november-2013-latest-edition-of-forsights-and-vb-trend-updates/
3. VisitEngland’s latest Destination Communication and the first edition of their February bi-monthly ENews are now accessible via paragraph 1 and 2 of our protected page: http://britishdestinations.net/members-area/content/ve-staycation-2013-debrief/
Update your public facing website entry now
As one of the many added value membership benefits offered we maintain a popular public facing website that also automatically populates your page on our public facing Facebook presence. Both are offered free to you but you do need to occasionally update your own page entry to make it work well.
In the face of significant pre-season traffic and a steady flow of brochure requests being generated by the site, its past time to ask you all to do an annual checks and updates ( a few minutes work for most). The what and how is described at: http://britishdestinations.net/members-area/content/www-britishdestinations-co-uk/
Id’ be grateful you take the time to make sure that whoever is responsible for the task gets to see this message.
Visitor Economy letter
British Destination members are asked to consider supporting a new campaign designed to gain recognition for the visitor economy and within that the vital roles and functions of public and public private sector partnership. See more at:
http://britishdestinations.net/599-2/content/visitor-economy-letter/
This is a protected page. If you have forgotten or never had the login, email us here.
Final CMS Select Committee evidence session update
The Culture Media and Sport Select Committee’s final session on 3 February took evidence from both the CEOs of VisitBritain and VisitEngland and then from the Ministers with responsibility for Tourism and for Coastal Communities.
The link to the audio-visual record given below is well worth viewing or, as it’s rather long at 2 1/2 hours, a listen playing in the background as you work. This assumes of course that your organisation’s IT policies allow access to such modernity as audio-video streaming!
The VB and VE contributions were excellent and are helpful in understanding their viewpoints now and their possible future joint and separate general direction, Triennial Review and future funding round announcements permitting.
Albeit rather late in the life of the Parliament, the Ministerial comment (starting approximately half way through the recording) exposes some of the subtleties of policy direction and the degree of understanding at a senior level of tourism, tourism structures and relationships, and especially, in my view, their understanding and views around public, public private sector partnership. There is also a fair chunk on coastal resorts and tourism in both the VB/VE and ministerial sessions.
Please note before embarking on a potentially epic listening session you are unlikely to get anything of immediate operational value out this. The value lies in it being a really good strategic, contextual piece, which is of great relevance to both to English domestic/international and UK/British international tourism’s future.
I am grateful to the Tourism Alliance for pointing me to the clip. The overview and tone of comment above, however, are mine alone; just on the off-chance anyone decides to take umbrage:
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=17186
New VB and other information added to Britishdestinations.net
A lot has been added in recent days to British Destinations.net. Of note and with widest utility to the membership, is the January edition of VB’s Foresights on the subject of “What are potential visitors to Britain interested in doing? It’s probably of more strategic and product development planning value at the destination level, than of immediate value to individual business or to 2015 destination’s marketing plans? The report can be accessed at paragraph 3 of the following protected BritishDestinations.net page: http://britishdestinations.net/members-area/content/visitbritain-november-2013-latest-edition-of-forsights-and-vb-trend-updates/ All of VB’s recent reports and updates are available off this page.
We have also added 3 items recently to the research and statistics library, some of you will have been notified but not necessarily all: http://britishdestinations.net/research-and-statistics/ This page contains all the 50 plus reports in the library’s content in approximate publication date order.
Latest updates from the other national boards are accessible by scrolling down the drop down menu that appears off the main menu tab: “Members area and login”. Each Board has its own protected page.
As ever if you are a member and you come across a protected page and you have not had or can’t remember the login, just email me at peter.hampson@btconnect.com. If you not a member then its time you were: http://britishdestinations.net/membership-recruitment-tools/
British Destinations 