Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
TUESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2007
PETER HAMPSON,
MS SUZANNE
MALCOLM, STEVE
VINSON AND
STEVE WEAVER
Q80 Mr Evans: Is there a timescale
on this for the private investment coming in? Is there a light
there at the end of the tunnel?
Mr Weaver: We are expecting to
go out asking for expressions of interest sometime early after
Christmas.
Q81 Mr Evans: You still have millions
of people coming to Blackpool. People still come there and enjoy
going to Blackpool. We are painting a pretty dreary picture here
but there is hope there yet that people will still come to Blackpool.
Mr Weaver: There are just under
10 million adult visitors a year, so that is probably translated
to 14-15 million with children who come to Blackpool. This week
is the busiest week in Blackpool's year, the half-term week of
the Illuminations. The Illuminations is still a fantastic product,
enhanced by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen's design of a stretch of the
lights this year—it is worth anybody coming to see just
how wonderful that is—which will be mirrored next year by
a further design competition. There are real jewels throughout
Blackpool still, but it does need to reinvent itself radically
and replace the outworn public and private infrastructure.
Q82 Mr Evans: Which will then, perhaps,
allow you to turn the tables a bit. You have representatives of
political parties here who now no longer are coming to Blackpool
for their party conferences. What sort of blow was that to Blackpool?
Do you blame the political parties for turning their backs on
Blackpool? I think it is a shame but that is what has happened.
Mr Weaver: The blow is the loss,
at least in the short to medium term, of the conference and business
which is part of the component parts of making an all-year-round
destination. As you know, the Winter Gardens is a fantastic collection
of buildings, but it needs major, major changes for it to be able
to compete as a modern conferencing centre. The quality of accommodation
and restaurants and other offers in Blackpool has to match what
is being offered in Manchester, Birmingham, abroad. The potential
is there for it. I would not cast any concerns to people. It is
our job, I think, to make sure that we create in Blackpool reasons
for people wanting to come back again: because we have the right
facilities in terms of conferencing, because our hotels and the
offer of retail, shops and restaurants produces something which
competes nationally and internationally. By being at the seaside,
it will be a differentiated fun product which I am sure will compete
on that basis. One of the issues for the cities is that they are
great—and I go for weekends—but whether it be Manchester,
Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Gateshead or whatever,
they are of a similar sort of product. The seaside offers something
potentially different, if we can produce the other things that
are absolutely essential for people in conferencing to expect.
Q83 Mr Sanders: When people started
coming to conferences in Blackpool, there were not conference
centres in Nottingham, Birmingham and other inner city areas,
and public money/the taxpayer has built those conference centres
in those inner city areas to compete, in my view unfairly, with
the seaside resorts. Do you think government should now reverse
that and start helping the seaside resorts to compete fairly again
with these new tourism products that they have created?
Mr Weaver: The investment in the
cities, the investment that has taken place in terms of Heritage
money, which has created fantastic attractions across the country
and has really engendered a fantastic renaissance in our industrial
cities, we need to applaud. But, you are right, some of the unforeseen
consequences of that—and there has been something like £200
million invested in attractions in the North West alone in the
last 15 years—effectively has been an investment which has
given people reasons not to come to the seaside resorts. I think
the time is there. Part of the submissions that have been made
by BRADA is that the time is now for the government eye to gaze
at some of the issues that the seaside resorts face in terms of
the infrastructure and the needed investment, in order that we
can have the product sitting in that new infrastructure that will
attract people back. It is not a kind of blame, or that what was
done was wrong, but I think it has had a consequence and that
consequence now needs to be addressed, not least because the cost
to the public purse of not addressing it in terms of the social
cost is immense. And it is. We know the costs locally to the public
purse of the consequences of the decline of our economy. We are
picking up that public cost, so the investment is worthwhile in
the overall public purse.
Chairman: Janet Anderson.
Q84 Janet Anderson: Thank you, Chair.
First of all, my apologies for being late but I was showing a
group of tourists from Lancashire around Parliament. I am sorry
I could not join you at the beginning. I was interested in what
Peter said earlier, if I could go back to that. It is a constant
battle to persuade government of the importance of tourism and
hospitality. The one time when we did, sadly, was during foot
and mouth, when there was a recognition of that. We should be
concerned about outcomes and not structures, but I am interested
in what you said, Peter, about the need to bang heads together.
You may remember when I was Minister for Tourism and Chris Smith
was the Secretary of State, we did try to convene a sort of forum
every year between government departments to try to get them to
recognise exactly the kinds of things Steve was saying when they
are making decisions about trams and about roads and about sea
defences, that it has a relevance to the tourism industry. You
are clearly unhappy with the structure as it is now. Do you think
that kind of structure should be resurrected? What would you do
to improve it?
Mr Hampson: It is amazing that
government can find the money to invest in tourism when there
is a crisis but not when there is not a crisis. Modest investment
in tourism rather than panic investment when things have gone
horribly wrong is the approach that should be followed. The structure
we used to have—with the British Tourist Authority, an English
Tourist Board that then became the ETC, et cetera, a smallish
department allowing that to get on, et cetera, and a system below
with Regional Tourist Boards—all worked very well, in my
opinion. Unfortunately, we got what we wished for. When we were
asked what we thought of that system, everybody said, in general
terms: "This system is failing because it is not doing enough
on the marketing side." We got what we wished for, because
all of the structure that was there, all of the strategic direction
and policymaking was stripped out and the money was put into purely
marketing. That is not what the industry wanted but it is what
we ended up with.
Q85 Janet Anderson: It is what they
asked for, you are saying.
Mr Hampson: When they were asked
the question: "What do you think of VisitBritain?" they
said, "VisitBritain is not very good because it is not spending
enough on marketing." It did not mean that everything else
that it was doing was not needed. It was wanting more money and
more marketing, so the marketing strategy had strategic policy
direction. We now have a system where DCMS does not have the staff
to have a policy position and to direct the strategic—
Q86 Janet Anderson: Could I interrupt
you there. What do you mean DCMS does not have the staff?
Mr Hampson: In the tourism department—and
I cannot remember the figures—there are something like a
dozen people who all work jolly hard and are really good at the
few things that they have to do. They are not doing the big, bold
strategic leadership. That used to be done by the national Tourist
Boards. They had that role taken away by DCMS. The role was sort
of given to the Regional Development Agencies. It was: "Regional
Development Agencies, carry on," not realising that the Regional
Development Agencies are incapable of taking a strategic view.
A strategic view is required when there is a difficult decision,
so, as soon as you have a difficult decision, you have the nine
competing constituent parts deciding.
Q87 Janet Anderson: There is no coordination
and no direction.
Mr Hampson: There is no coordination.
The financial cake has not got any bigger—in fact, in real
terms it has shrunk. The amount of money that is being spent on
tourism has been at a standstill position for a significant number
of years. All that is happening is the resources are being pushed
around from one person to another but there is nobody taking control
of both the marketing and strategic direction which is required.
Without that strategy, without people making hard directions,
the industry will always be in competition with each other.
Q88 Janet Anderson: What is your
solution?
Mr Hampson: There needs to be
somebody who has both the staff and the authority and the resources
to do the strategic direction, to think about things. As an organisation
we have been trying to get DCMS to accept that, since four out
of five tourism journeys are made by car and £3 out of £4
spent in the UK tourism economy comes from people who arrive in
cars, transport and roads and cars within it are the absolute
vital ground. Until very recently, until the new minister had
this issue raised, DCMS's answer was, "That's transport.
That's not our decision." Of course the civil servants realise
that transport is absolutely fundamental but they do not have
the resources to deal with it. Basically, they are having to hunker
down, keep a low position, do the few things that they must do
(that is, look after ministers, parliamentary questions, oversee
VisitBritain), but not direct the strategy of the country. So
we are in a very strange situation where nobody is giving the
direction. There are moves afoot at the moment to try to come
up with forums. We have a newly created marketing organisation
for England, VisitEngland. That organisation has no more staff,
no more resources than it did before, and I suspect—and
I do not know—that after tomorrow's CSR announcements from
DCMS they may well have less money to spend on English marketing.
But you cannot market in isolation; you have to have some direction
over the product. In national terms, that is by giving some policy
direction, by saying, "You must be a quality scheme"
and coming up with systems that make that happen. That is an example;
I am not saying that is the solution, but sitting down and saying,
"What is tourism going to look like in 15 years time if car
transport really becomes an issue? How are we going to get people
on to the public transport? How is somewhere like Blenheim Palace
going to survive if it needs—and I am making these figures
up as I go along—a quarter of a million visitors and they
cannot get there by train?" because logic tells you they
are not going to be able to. People need to be making those decisions,
so there is that big role. There is also some control over VisitBritain
and the marketing element. Somebody needs to direct it.
Q89 Mr Evans: From the three local
authorities, are you spending more or less now than you were,
perhaps, five years ago on promoting your own areas?
Mr Vinson: In terms of our local
authority, we are spending less, revenue wise, than we were five
years ago. We have changed. We had very much a traditional production
of a holiday guide, supported by a marketing campaign, with two
visitor centres. We discontinued the guide last year, one of the
visitor centres has been converted across to a library, and we
have changed the access arrangements to the other visitor centre.
In terms of revenue spend, it has gone down from 3.5% in 2003-04
of our gross budget to 1% in 2007-08 of our gross budget. We have
increased expenditure on capital support for projects like the
World Heritage Site status and projects that are very much heritage
based, so we see our role as changing from marketing—and
you probably would have thought "Where is Caradon?"
but marketing in that context we think is better done by the Cornwall
level—to product support from a development. Because we
get the planning applications for change of use of barns to self-catering
units, we think that our role is much more toward the support
of the development of the product rather than the marketing of
it.
Ms Malcolm: In terms of Oxford,
I would say the budget has probably stayed pretty static for the
last five years. To add to that, we are coming under increased
pressure year-on-year to justify a local authority investing in
what is a non-statutory service, so we have the traditional local
authority model in Oxford and for us to justify spending, particularly
on the marketing side, is becoming increasingly difficult.
Q90 Mr Evans: How is tourism in Oxford?
Ms Malcolm: Growing, interestingly.
We gain about 8.8 million visitors every year: 60% of them are
international visitors and we are seeing increasing lengths of
stay. One of the big issues facing Oxford is in terms of day visitors
versus staying visitors and the sustainability of that issue.
We are seeing an increase in staying visitors but we still have
a long way to go on that.
Mr Weaver: Our spend on tourism
is higher now than it was. The way in which that money is spent
has changed. There is significantly more money going to develop
the changes in Blackpool physically, in terms of having the capacity
to take those changes forward, and, as my colleague said, supporting
the capital projects in order to make that change but significantly
more. In terms of the direct marketing support, that is higher,
but a lot of that is now supported externally rather than from
the Blackpool Council taxpayer.
Q91 Mr Evans: As far as value for
money, if an indicator could be invented that was fairly objective
how do you think your areas would fare against that? Is it good
value for money?
Ms Malcolm: Very well.
Mr Weaver: I think it is essential
for us. It is essential now to keep Blackpool going and it is
essential for the future reshaping of Blackpool. In those terms,
it is essential expenditure. I would use that rather than value
for money.
Mr Hampson: There is a question
that comes to my mind about what we define as local government
spending. If somebody builds a bus shelter in Wolverhampton, it
is a bus shelter. If they are building it on Blackpool seafront,
it is a tourist structure. I do not follow that argument. A lot
of the money that is being spent by authorities with a strong
tourism interest are on the things that they should be spending
anyway; on roads, on infrastructure. It is wrong for it all to
be rounded up, as it is often then presented back as proof that
central government does not need to be spending money on tourism
support. Local authorities in England spend—I think this
is the figure they quote at the moment—£121 million
on support to tourism. How much of that is structural support,
the sort of marketing support, those things that are genuine support
to tourism? We do need to get a focus on what is tourism support
and what is just common decent stuff that local authorities and
central government should be doing anyway. Is a road to Great
Yarmouth a tourism road or is it an essential part of its economic
future?
Q92 Mr Evans: Do you think local
authorities could be doing more?
Mr Hampson: I am surprised they
are managing to do what they do, given the pressures that are
put towards them. It is a non-statutory function and when the
Regional Development Agency system was brought into place there
was a common call that went up that said that local authorities
should not be as involved in tourism as they had been. There was
this thought that marketing a destination should be done on a
sub-regional level and we got this term "DMO" which
nobody is quite sure of. Is it Destination Marketing Organisation
or Destination Management Organisation? In other regions they
have come up with different terms. Sometimes it is a town, sometimes
it is a sub-region, sometimes it is a whole county. There is this
whole argument about local authorities should get out of tourism
support. Not unreasonably, local authorities have exactly the
same pressure that central government has. There are people in
local government who are saying, "Why are we spending money
on tourism when schools are more important?" et cetera, so
when central government and RDAs said, basically, "Your role
should be confined to infrastructure, bins, toilets, roads, etc"
that is exactly what a lot of authorities started to do. They
said, "Okay, we do not need Tourist Information Centres,
they are not our concern. Marketing is not our concern."
When that thought came into the minds of the RDAs, I am convinced
they thought—because let us not forget that a lot of the
money that is spent by local authorities in the destination is
contributions from their local business—that those contributions
would be rolled into a big pot and handed over. It is just not
the way of life. Local authorities would struggle to take that
approach, to hand money on a non-statutory function to others.
Certainly private sector businesses have just said, "If I'm
in Blackpool, why should I support Lancashire? I am not going
to put my money into a Lancashire and Blackpool tourism approach."
One of the suggestions the North West RDA were making was that
Blackpool should not be involved in its tourism, it should be
this bigger organisation. As a consequence, what happened in the
North West, and why it is working so well, is that the Tourist
Boards were created but the local authorities did not give up
their role, so they have actually created an extra layer within
the North West. It is functioning very well but it is functioning
at quite large expense, which only a north west RDA, with the
kind of money it has, is able to fund, in my view.
Q93 Chairman: You have all to varying
degrees been pretty critical of DCMS and of the lack of strategic
leadership. DCMS has said that under its tourism reform programme,
it has overseen a package of operational improvements in key areas.
Amongst the results of this, it says there is now a structured
programme of engagement with local authorities on tourism. Perhaps
I could ask the three of you whether you feel that you are part
of a structured programme of engagement with DCMS?
Ms Malcolm: Certainly from Oxford,
no.
Q94 Chairman: Are you aware of any
engagement with DCMS on tourism?
Ms Malcolm: No.
Q95 Chairman: Right. Caradon?
Mr Vinson: No, not practically
speaking. As I mentioned, with regards to marketing, as a function,
we cooperate with the county level, so it is done by the county
rather than us.
Q96 Chairman: Blackpool, are you
talking to DCMS in a constructively engaged way?
Mr Weaver: On specific projects,
I would say, rather than as a structure in terms of tourism generally.
Largely, our contact is through the RDA. I would say that I do
believe there is an issue in terms of the remit of DCMS and the
capacity it has to be able to give tourism the level of support
that it needs. I do not think I would be critical of the people
in DCMS or DCMS as it is. I think its capacity within government
needs to be looked at and the view of government about tourism
as an industry needs to be considered. I think that point has
been made before, but perhaps I could add something to that: I
think that within tourism there is a kind of differentiation.
Heritage/cultural tourism, and probably, after foot and mouth,
rural tourism, have a kind of hierarchy and the kind of fun-based
tourism is regarded with even less seriousness, although in fact
they all make an equal contribution in terms of the economy, in
terms of jobs. I think that is an issue for government as a whole
rather than DCMS.
Mr Hampson: In DCMS's defence,
they are about to launch a destination charter which is aimed
at local authorities. There is a lot of work going on but it is
all work that is being done without a structure and without funding,
and it is all about virtual activity. There is a tourism forum
being brought together, which is going to meet twice a year, which
is great—the opportunity to talk is always helpful—but
it is not the same as a properly funded strategic body that gives
direction for tourism in England.
Q97 Chairman: It was suggested in
our previous session that DCMS need not devote a lot of staff
resources to tourism because it created the body which should
have that lead role and which should spend the money, which is
VisitBritain. How much contact do you have with VisitBritain?
Do you feel engaged with them?
Mr Weaver: We are engaged but
I would not say it is in any deep way. I would not accept that
proposition because I think that DCMS have a very clear role within
government, which cannot be delivered by a body on their behalf,
which is to influence the other government departments and priorities
and strategies to make sure that government as a whole reacts.
Without that, I think the changes that are needed in many areas
in order to maximise the benefits of tourism simply will not happen.
That cannot be passed on. Certain remits of tourism can be passed
on to a body like VisitBritain but they cannot do the job that
I believe is necessary within government.
Ms Malcolm: We are quite engaged
with VisitBritain, particularly on the marketing side. I would
commend VisitBritain for the work that they do on the marketing
side, given the resources that they have as an agency. But I would
agree with the point made by Peter earlier about the strategic
direction. VisitBritain do not see that as a role and it indeed
is not their role to deliver a strategic direction for UK tourism.
I think we are lacking in that influence at a local level.
Mr Vinson: With respect to marketing,
VisitBritain is doing a good job. We would say that it would be
more on their link-up with local-based websites, so that you could
see some feedback and results in that way, where there is room
for improvement, but, in general marketing terms, very good.
Mr Hampson: The point about VisitBritain,
though, is that when DCMS created the new system that we are all
living with, they left VisitBritain with the funding and said,
"But you will now spend it on marketing. Your role is as
a marketing organisation." You have a fairly small DCMS department
who have an agency who do not have a strategic role. VisitBritain
are trying to develop a strategic role. It is difficult to speak
for them but I suspect they would quite love to have the role
to help them to develop the product that they are trying to market,
but they cannot do it without resources. We come back to this
business of the cake needs to be bigger and divided. There is
another issue for VisitBritain if I might touch on it. VisitBritain
do a fantastic job promoting this country abroad and it can only
be done by a national board. You cannot have a system where every
little guesthouse in the world ends up producing an advert that
gets to the international market. It just cannot happen. You have
to have a national board. The problem with VisitBritain—and
I think they may be their own worst enemy—is that they have
been quoting a figure of £28 to £30 for every £1
invested in them and DCMS have taken the view: "If that is
the case, we do not need to invest money. Let's get the private
sector putting money in." There is some argument that the
private sector should put a percentage of money in. The problem
with it, in my view, is that VisitBritain have been given too
high a commercial target. They are told that for every pound that
they spend abroad they have to bring in so many pounds of private
sector money. The only people who are capable of putting that
money up are the big operators, so you end up with VisitBritain
working with the likes of British Airways, et cetera, all worthy
companies and all the people who should be working with them,
but of course those companies want to have a return from it, so
the kind of marketing VisitBritain are doing, are allowed to do
and can do is being distracted. They should be saying: "Britain
is a wonderful place, come to it," not "Britain is a
wonderful place—oh, and, by the way, how about flying with
x airline or when you are here how about hiring your car from
x or y hire car company?" There has to be some thought about
how a national body markets the country. Should it be done purely
as a brand image marketing activity—as I believe it should—or
should it be done as a commercial activity, as DCMS appear to
want it to be done?
Q98 Chairman: If it is done as a
brand image marketing operation, essentially that can only be
done with public money in your view.
Mr Hampson: Correct. That is the
problem. That is where I think VisitBritain's activities, which
are brilliant, have been going wrong. Exactly the same is being
replicated with VisitEngland—and to a degree it is even
worse because they are being told that their marketing must bring
in money. Organisations like mine cannot find the cash for promoting
their promotions because the Blackpools of this world cannot see
direct response to it. If you put money into a national advertising
campaign, you need to have some sort of payback for that and you
cannot build national brand campaigns on that basis. It becomes
a really difficult issue. I have a document that fell out of my
Sunday paper. It is a great document. It is done by VisitEngland
and it promotes "Enjoy England itself"—East of
England, South of England, Yorkshire and Best Western Hotels.
That is a great piece of print, it is a really good marketing
tool, but is that the role of the English National Tourist Board
to promote three of its sub-regions and a business? I am not sure
that it is.
Q99 Mr Sanders: Are we not missing
the point here. The real costs of tourism that fall on the people
who live in the tourist resorts is not met by central government
grant. If your business is widget manufacture, it is not the same
as if your main business is tourism, where you have to have more
parks and gardens and to maintain them, you have to have more
street cleaning, you have to have more bins for people to put
their rubbish in, you need more public toilets. Your Health Service
does not get recouped the cost of people who go to A&E because
they went out and got drunk on a Friday and Saturday night but
were staying in your area because it has clubs and pubs and is
an attractive place to come. You have all these costs that fall
on people who live in these areas, either as council taxpayers
or general taxpayers, that central government is not meeting.
The tiny little bit of taxpayers' money that goes to marketing
tourism is actually irrelevant. The real costs are these costs,
the costs of having to maintain, which the central government
grant system does not recognise. Discuss!
Mr Weaver: You are absolutely
right. The cost for us could vary anywhere between £5 million
and £8 million per year—without taking into account
the impact on the Police Service or the Health Service or other
public bodies—over and above what we get through the Revenue
Support Grant and the Formula Grant. Certainly a concern for us
is that, in the reviewing of the Formula Grant which is taking
place at the moment, one of the areas they are looking at is the
weighting given for visitors into an area, and if the wrong option
is chosen for areas such as ours then that impact will be considerably
worsened: it will not just be £5 million to £8 million
additional cost on top of what we get from grant, it will be significantly
more than that.
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