Examination of Witnesses (Questions 560
- 568)
WEDNESDAY 12 MARCH 2008
MS AVIVA
PEARSON, MR
ALAN ROBINSON
AND MR
MALCOLM BELL
Q560 Mr Sanders: One statistical
question. You gave some stats earlier about the value of tourism
but what would be really interesting to know is how much of the
money that is spent in tourism stays in the local economy today
compared with 20 or 30 years ago. Unless you can get that statistic
it is very difficult to give a true value of tourism to the local
economy. Discuss.
Mr Bell: I can kick off in one
regard without being able to give you that statistic. The one
thing that has changed quite dramatically is where visitors are
spending. Thirty pence in the pound goes on food and drink and
27% goes on retail. The days of coming down with a tin of sandwiches
and a flask of coffee have gone, lunching out, dining out, eating
out in the evening is very strong and there are statistics on
how that rattles through into the local food and drink sector.
It is only about 21% on accommodation because tourism does include
day visits. There have been quite big shifts in where the visitor
spend goes. If you went back 20 or 30 years ago the amount on
accommodation would have been a lot larger and the other aspects
of food and drink and retail smaller. That reflects some of the
changes in visitor patterns where shopping is part of a holiday
experience.
Ms Pearson: Even though we do
not have any concrete statistics on this I am going to give you
my professional guestimate that a significant percentage of revenue
stays in the English Riviera because a large proportion of our
businesses are SMEs or micro-businesses, ma and pa operations.
I am not just talking about direct tourism businesses now, I am
also talking about retail and even our petrol stations, post offices.
Just from using those kinds of levels of intelligence in figuring
this out, I would say a large proportion of that revenue would
stay in this area. At this current moment in time, although we
do know Whitbread is investing, we have very few national chains
here where that money would be going elsewhere. If you were going
to tackle me down to a percentage I would say 90% of the revenue
would stay in the Bay.
Q561 Mr Sanders: That sounds very,
very high. Part of the problem is there are not these statistics,
it is all guesswork.
Ms Pearson: No, unfortunately
there are not. I am just basing that on the number of local businesses.
Q562 Mr Sanders: One of the things
that we have been discovering through this inquiry is that it
is the lack of statistics that more than anything has probably
held the industry back.
Ms Pearson: I agree with you,
and this is why I am also pinning my hopes on the fact that with
Partners for England we will iron this out and have one robust
mechanism for measuring these statistics so we all fill out one
form with one set of questions, no matter how comprehensive, even
if there was an incentive not just for the businesses to fill
out the forms but also the local authorities and to then hand
these forms in to wherever they need to go, be it VisitBritain
or DCMS, so they can compile these statistics. We do need to do
this as a matter of urgency. We all had to give key statements
into Partners for England on what we wished out of this and that
was exactly what I wished for, our statistics to be robust.
Mr Bell: We use a proxy measure.
When it comes up to Easter, and you hear me saying, "What's
Easter going to be like", as Southwest Tourism we do not
go for the statistics, we go to the linen hire companies and laundries.
When they say, "Last year was 15% down" and the national
statistics come through, those guys hold records and something
like linen records, not being funny, are a good base model because
they do not change with the weather, they do not change with anything
else, and if those guys tell me it is 2% up or 2% down I believe
the guys washing the sheets more than I do government statistics.
That is a bit of a sad reflection.
Mr Robinson: From South Hams'
perspective in a rural area it is even more extreme in terms of
the number of very small businesses and micro businesses. We are
pretty confident, given the nature of our area, that a lot of
money does stay locally and you can see that in the number of
small businesses, and particularly food and drink is a really
big issue. Also in historic towns it is quite difficult for some
of the major corporate bodies, whether they are retailers or hotels,
to get in there and because they are small buildings they often
are very much local businesses. We think there is a significant
amount of spend captured in South Hams.
Q563 Chairman: Aviva, I have got
a question specifically for you, I think. The Committee came to
Torbay because we wanted to visit a traditional English seaside
resort and we are aware of the problems facing seaside resorts.
This afternoon we have talked to amusement arcade operators, we
have visited Paignton Pier and we have heard about the problems
that traditional businesses, like arcade operators and the attractions
on the pier, are facing. We also heard about the hopes that might
come from the establishment of a new casino in Torbay. Do you
see the tourist package on offer as changing? Should we adapt
to a different kind of tourism package? Should we accept that
perhaps the days of "Kiss Me Quick" hats and arcades
are now disappearing?
Ms Pearson: I never want to see
a "Kiss Me Quick" hat in Torbay as long as I am here
in post. I would like to think we are raising our offer anyway
as seen by the marketing. As I was telling you before, we have
totally changed the face of who we are addressing to come here
either as a short break or a main holiday, and it is working.
As I said before, for the first time since 1999 we are back into
double digits in the AB1 market, which is the higher spend. I
will tell you right now a casino as a product, if it is done in
a certain way, which I will explain in a moment, would be a welcome
addition to what we have on offer. It would need to be part of
an overall entertainment package. It would have to have dinner
theatre, a conference centre, it would need to be an iconic building,
because it is only a small casino. We are talking a very small
part of what could be a very big revenue generator as well as
an employer. There are a lot of things we could do with somebody
should they come and develop something like this in the Bay, the
actual casino operators themselves, where we could say to them,
"Fine, we want to see you train this many people in the Bay
and it has to have X many local people from this Bay employed.
You need to repair this much of the harbour", so section
106, which is something we do anyway. I feel the casino, as a
product, would fit very well in here. I mean a tasteful casino.
I know today on the pier the gentlemen who were there from BACTA
were trying to compare us with Las Vegas and Dubai, but those
are totally the wrong people to compare us with because regardless,
if we have a casino or not, we need to compare ourselves like
for like. You can compare us to Atlantic City and we will beat
them hands-down and I would say that to anybody from Atlantic
city. We have so much product on offer here and a casino would
fit in very well with the offer that we currently have.
Q564 Chairman: And arcades and bingo
halls are also part of that offer?
Ms Pearson: They are already here
and obviously if a developer approaches them and wants to make
them into a 5 star resort and that is where we would be pushing,
we cannot say it is not welcome. There is still a segment of the
visitor population we have coming here for their short breaks
and main holidays who do want to go to bingo halls. Do not forget
that amusement arcades are there for the children and casinos
do not let anyone in who is under-18, so they still have to have
that element of entertainment. If a family says it is okay for
their son to spend his pocket money on trying to win one of those
crazy frogs, who are we to stop them from enjoying themselves?
As long as there is a market for that, and the gentlemen you spoke
to this afternoon at Paignton Pier said there was one, then we
are addressing a proportion of the population who feel that is
entertainment.
Q565 Mr Sanders: I would like to
ask about the Olympics. This week LOCOG announced the details
of the Cultural Olympiad, which is tailor made for seaside resorts
to back on to. Does the southwest see itself as being a venue
for a major Cultural Olympiad event? If so, what? Aviva and Alan,
are your areas going to be putting in bids to be part of the Cultural
Olympiad?
Ms Pearson: From what I understand,
yes, we are, through our Culture and Leisure Department and working
in co-ordination we will be putting together a bid. I do see this
as a fantastic way of offering, just like we did for SeaBritain.
I can see us operating the same way with this Cultural Olympiad
between the arts and culture and we can put together a fantastic
offer together with everyone else in the southwest.
Mr Robinson: From South Hams'
perspective we have not made a judgment on it and I do not know
the details of the proposals. The issue we have had in relation
to the Olympics is it is going to be happening during the summer
and that is when we are pretty full.
Q566 Mr Sanders: The Cultural Olympiad
runs for four years in the run-up, so you could run an event next
year, the following year, the following year and the following
year.
Mr Robinson: We have not made
a judgment or discussed that as a corporate body yet.
Mr Bell: My view, and I totally
agree with Alan, is the biggest enemy to sustainability of tourism,
the economy or anything else is seasonality and there is not an
awful lot we can do about that, but yes there is and that is called
clever events and clever activities that feature us outside so
people are not coming necessarily thinking they must have sunshine
but are coming to a great part of the world. The whole approach
to a major events strategy, incorporating all the local events,
gets that richness across. It is quite right, we have got a great
opportunity to get our acts together on events that feature in
those lull periods, and we do get them. We have got Easter coming
up, but we know we get a lull after that increasingly in the shoulder
from May through to the school holidays because of SATs tests
and whatever. It is a great opportunity to lay on events at that
particular time as well as other lull points which will attract
markets which are not deterred through external factors such as
the school holidays and SATs. We have to be cute and clever about
it and if you are laying on an event for tourists it has got to
be as popular, if not more, with local people and we should get
two hits on it. I think it is a great opportunity to get our events
approach right.
Q567 Mr Sanders: Is the southwest
expecting more visitors during the year of 2012 or fewer?
Mr Bell: If we get it wrong there
will be fewer. I am a man who took up this job when the eclipse
came along. What I mean by if we get it wrong is the first message
is we have to make sure people do not think they have got to stay
away. The first challenge of communication is making sure that
people do not go, "Oh, the Olympics are on, we have got to
stay away" and you can build on it. You have to take this
market by market. Six million people in the Commonwealth owe their
roots to the southwest, genealogy is the third most popular thing
on the Internet and we have got great opportunities to say, "If
your name comes from here and you are coming for the Olympics,
come down to the southwest". You can use it in different
ways to deliver your second objective, which is to have more,
but it has got to be very cute with the events, the activities,
how you tackle different markets and the connection of Plymouth
with the American market. We can be cute about it, but if we get
it wrong there will be less.
Q568 Philip Davies: Can I ask one
final thing of Malcolm which we cannot let not be asked. In the
written submission from Helpful Holidays, who are going to give
evidence next, they said: "We believe that the activities
of Southwest tourism are not highly valued by the majority of
accommodation, attraction or other businesses who serve the needs
of visitors to the southwest. Only a minority of businesses are
members." They are the people at the chalk face of this,
so how would you respond to the accusation that you are more of
a hindrance than a help to them?
Mr Bell: We have got 5,000 members,
so that is not a small number. There are probably about 15,000
businesses in the whole, but if you take those 5,000 members they
represent the vast majority of National Quality Assured, so it
is a large, large number. The challenge in the business I would
segment in different ways. If this was a massive industry run
by corporates we would not be needed, but it is a massive industry
run by small and micro businesses. The ones that are very good
and very effective in their marketing because they have backgrounds
in other areas can get on and do lots of themselves, and they
should. We are here to help businesses more at a destination level
to help them with operational issues about filling their beds
this year and doing things like that, or else they will be exposed.
Regionally we are here looking at the markets for the future to
keep them competitive because there is not that operational and
corporate planning strategic role. There is validity in the point
that not all businesses need Tourist Boards, and in an ideal world
they would not need a Tourist Board because they would have the
skills and ability to do it, but we have a very fragmented industry
which is massive in terms of economic value but run by micro and
small businesses, which is our strength in giving us some uniqueness
and diversity but it is also our weakness in working with them.
I do argue that we have got a role but I would not argue that
everybody should be a member and everybody needs Southwest Tourism,
the more that do not because they can do it themselves the better.
Chairman: Can I thank the three of you
very much.
|
