Proposals are being invited from the tourism industry for the next round of tourism investment funds, in support of Wales’ thematic years. Visit Wales is looking for big idea projects which can make a real difference in making Wales a must visit destination. Expressions of interest are sought by 23 November 2018. See more under the British Destinations New Funding menu tab or go direct to the page at:
The Tourism Alliances’ evidence to the House of Lords Regenerating Seaside Towns inquiry has now been added to the British Destinations consultations pages. The evidence provided by the Alliance covers all the key areas and support all the core arguments and point made to the Committee in our own response .
Unusually the Committee has taken oral evidence in advance of written evidence, presumably selecting those to give oral evidence by some other criteria than the content and quality of their written submissions. Whether further oral evidence sessions will follow and therefore whether or not we and/or the Tourism Alliance might be called remains uncertain. I intend to contact the Committee Clerks to get an answer.
A late entry the original blog, was posted as a new page in error…….Original read:
I have added a report released by the Centre for Cities. It’s a relatively long and technical piece that, among other things, makes the case for increasing new commercial office stock and makes recommendations to National and Local Government for policy changes to support that aim.
The report covers England and Wales and takes in a number of British Destination member Cities and a few larger towns and therefore it should be of direct interest to colleagues in these destinations. The more general points about the proportion of office to retail space in City/Town centres and logistic to industrial in the suburbs and the comparisons between weak and stronger performing Cities/Towns may be of much wider interests to other Cities or towns of various sizes that are not specifically included in the research. Recommendations around the potential need to reduce and re-purpose excess retail in a rapidly changing retail market may be of particular interest. Perhaps it is one to consider be sharing with colleagues in regeneration and economic development?
The report can be accessed off the Britishdestinations.net “Research & statistic – by year ” main menu tab. It is currently the first main item on the full list of 120 plus reports. Alternatively go direct to the paper’s individual page at:
I am reproducing a note from Kurt Janson Director of the Tourism Alliance summarising some of the headlines from the recently released International Passenger Survey. These are of concern given the recent focus on international tourism within England and the apparent previous boost from the post Brexit announcement on the pound. Please not the caveats on small sample sizes. Hopefully just a temporary glitch:
All
Following is a cut and paste from VisitBritain of the Journey Purpose and Origin Market data from the Q2 IPS figures. They show Holiday visits down 8%, while VFR visitors were up 6% (although spend was down 4%) and Business travel was down massively with visits down 15% and spend down 30%.
There was also a huge fall in Misc sector which includes study – 32% – although spend there was down by only 6%
There is also a health warning on the data in the market performance table as the sample size for a number of the countries is small and the margin for error can be significant but, overall, it shows a fairly consistent fall in visitors across all markets with the exception of China, Japan and UAE. Of particular concern will be the 12% decline in US visitors as they are the UK’s largest spending market by some margin.
Kurt
Journey purpose:
Holiday visits and spend both fell from Q2 2017’s records. Visits fell 8% to 4.3 million; spend fell by a milder 4% to £2.8 billion.
Journeys to visit friends or relatives (VFR) rose by 6% to 3.0 million – the first time the UK has welcomed 3 million VFR visits in any Q2 period. VFR spending fell 4% from Q2 2017’s record to £1.3 billion.
Compared to a record setting Q2 2017 business visits fell 15% to 2.1 million and spending was down 30% to £1.1 billion in Q2 2018.
Visits for miscellaneous purposes (including study) fell by 32% to 554,000 with spending down 6% to £670 million
Q2 2018 – selected markets
Please note that for many markets base sizes on a quarterly basis can be small and confidence intervals can be wide, especially for spending data.
The British Destinations’ narrative response to the issue specific House of Lord Select Committee’s call for written evidence on the regeneration of seaside towns a communities can be accessed at:
British Destinations