Britain’s tourist boards under the cosh

With funding for tourism promotion in Britain under severe pressure, an emphasis on digital marketing and use of social media is on the rise.

Five years of public spending cuts is impacting the work of Destination Management Organisations (DMOs), formerly known as tourist boards, which have long depended on local authority grants to promote their destination.

“It’s going to get worse. When they (local authorities) have to empty bins and look after old people, they have to make difficult decisions,” says James Berresford, chief executive of Visit England.

He was speaking at a recent Visit Isle of Wight conference, where local tourism-related businesses heard that the island’s council was planning to cut £50,000 from the annual £300,000 tourism budget.

Council leader Jonathan Bacon said: “These are volatile and changing times but tourism remains vitally important feature of the Isle of Wight. Small accommodation traders are the lifeblood of the island economy.”

Added Beresford: “Usually I have to start a conference hearing that a local authority won’t support the DMO. Tourism is not a candy floss economy: it supports the local economy but we can only do this if we do it together.”

Visit England is this Spring launching a nationwide tourism campaign on Twitter using the hashtag #realtimetraveltips – the idea is visitors can use the platform and tourism providers would reply.

It remains to be seen whether it is an effective campaign (some DMOs have reservations) but social media and digital marketing is certain to maintain its ascendancy in straightened times.

Cornwall, one of the most progressive DMOs in Britain in using video and social media, is looking to move towards having a budget entirely based on private sector money: in January, all 13 staff at the DMO were handed redundancy notices although it’s seen as a technicality until the proposed budget funding shift happens.

Visit Isle of Wight has a total budget of around £1m, including the £300,000 from the council. Now the DMO is looking to follow the example of Great Yarmouth, and start charging tourism-related businesses to raise funds.

It’s part of a wider drive to become less dependent on public money: instead, creating guaranteed income from businesses profiting from tourism, while working more closely with the private sector for funding and co-operation on digital marketing.

At present, only one-third of the island’s 1,200 tourism businesses donate, from spending £60 for an advert on the DMO’s website (which generates ad incomes of £140,000 a year) through to Red Funnel, contributing £100,000.

In Great Yarmouth, the money from tourism businesses is collected via the business rates. David Marsh, chairman of Greater Yarmouth Tourism, told the conference that the Norfolk town saw tourism shrink from 20,000 tourist beds in 1995 to just 3,000 now.

Last year, the town started charging tourism businesses – not just hotels, but ice-cream parlours, supermarkets and car park operators. In fact, anyone who makes money out of tourists.

It’s a five-year plan which will raise £500,000 a year from 1,200 businesses. Great Yarmouth also gets a local authority grant, with a new board of directors administering the total pot.

Said Marsh: “ We are aiming for 2% growth a year, so 12% over five years earning £65m – not bad for a spend of £2.5m. The future is partnership between private and public sectors.”

David Thornton, CEO of Visit Isle of Wight, said: There is a very real possibility that in the future we may have less money to spend. Just as we are getting traction, we may run out of steam. Councils across the country are having to cope with difficult cuts but it would be suicidal to reduce tourism budgets before alternatives are put in place.”