Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 600 - 614)

WEDNESDAY 12 MARCH 2008

MS LYNNE HOOKINGS, MR JOHN MILNE HOME AND MR MORAY BOWATER

  Q600  Chairman: To us?

  Mr Bowater: To you. I listened to the tape on your website and I also read the transcript. I cannot remember whether it was Hugh or Tom who answered the question. Mr Sanders, I think you asked the question and it was a question which was clearly aimed at asking what the problem was with the booking system associated with EnglandNet and the answer came back, "EnglandNet is not a booking system", which is technically correct, but it was not an open answer to your question. EnglandNet is the database which sits behind all of VisitBritain's websites. It is a distribution system. It was set up and built and the project was originally designed for one main reason and that was to take bookings online and earn commission for VisitBritain and generate a revenue stream. EnglandNet sits behind all of the VisitBritain websites. Am I allowed to quote?

  Q601  Chairman: You are allowed to quote.

  Mr Bowater: This is a quote from the VisitEngland strategy document from Tom Wright to the Board of VisitEngland dated 29 November 2007: "enjoyengland.com", which is one of VisitBritain's primary websites, he says on page two, "will become the primary marketing channel. It will become the key site for visitors looking to travel in England with dynamic content changing on a daily basis to encourage repeat visits and loyalty. There will be much greater visibility of commercial and bookable products through the site with a clear call to action". All of that is driven by the EnglandNet database. When we initially made our complaint to the Commission in 2004, having tried to explain to VisitBritain why there was a problem, VisitBritain very quickly closed down the company which at that time was developing EnglandNet which was called Networks for Tourism. Tom Wright gave me, as the representative of a consortium of about 45 companies who were all supporting our complaint, certain assurances that they would not continue to develop EnglandNet as a booking agent. Actually, what they did was encourage RDAs, regional Tourist Boards and local authorities to develop their own websites with booking engines in them so that they could simply refer the inquiries down the line to the local authorities where the bookings would take place on their websites, thereby getting round the State Aid rules that had been explained to them by the Commission that they were in breach of. That is the course that they have been pursuing for the last four years despite a renewal of our complaint to the Commission in 2006 and an explanation of the reasons why we wanted to do that. The Commission, I should add, has come back to VisitBritain and has told them there are extremely serious issues with the EnglandNet system and the fact of the interoperability between EnglandNet, regional Tourist Board websites, local authority websites and what are called destination management systems, which are funded by the public sector. The State Aid rules on this are very clear and VisitBritain have encouraged local authorities and RDAs and regional Tourist Boards to invest in these systems and it is very likely that the Commission will find them in breach of the State Aid rules both on the grounds of taking bookings and also on the inclusion only of accommodation which has been graded to NQAS. They are going to get into all sorts of trouble over it.

  Q602  Mr Sanders: In a sense, does EnglandNet unnecessarily duplicate the role of your own company and perhaps the Tamar Valley Tourism Association and other like bodies?

  Mr Milne Home: We are not a booking organisation. All I would say about EnglandNet, and I had not heard of it until I found out you were going to ask questions on it, is in a way we are the enemy, you might say, as far as they are concerned because they do not want us to progress into a booking agency, not that I think we would. I would ask the question, what in the hell are they doing developing this. If you go on holiday and you want to go to Cornwall, you type in "Cornwall" and up comes Cornwall, or "The Tamar Valley, or Looe or Dartmoor" or whatever it is, you type it in and you go there. What in the hell are they doing trying to be Big Brother from the centre.

  Q603  Mr Sanders: That was actually the questioning of them in Committee and I was not convinced by the answers.

  Mr Milne Home: I would also make a comment about money. Nothing comes down to the Tourist Association, it just gets creamed off on these projects and it is more jobs for the boys as far as one can make out. Sorry about that.

  Q604  Alan Keen: Could I come back to something that was touched on earlier, which was the branding. Somebody, I have forgotten who it was now, illustrated how successful Cornwall has been and there is Cornish this and Cornish that. Do you agree, therefore, that the RDAs cover too large an area and it would be better if the money came down to places which could be identified rather than the RDA saying, "Come to Southwest England", which does not mean as much as Cornwall or Devon would?

  Ms Hookings: As local operators we would like it to be much more localised rather than marketing the whole of the southwest from Land's End up to Gloucester.

  Q605  Alan Keen: First of all, you feel there is not enough money spent on the English regions compared with Wales and Scotland?

  Ms Hookings: Absolutely.

  Q606  Alan Keen: You also think in England, where you are affected, it should not come to an RDA which says, "Come to the southwest" but to areas much more focused, like Devon or Cornwall? Before you answer that, apart from the specific problem both of you at the end have got with EnglandNet, do you feel that private businesses are not involved directly enough in what happens to public money?

  Ms Hookings: The way I understood what was said earlier by the previous speakers was that Cornwall has overtaken Devon in terms of the Wow! factor and drawing people down into Cornwall. We all know why: Objective 1 money, the fantastic infrastructure they have now got, the wonderful tourist attractions they have got, the money they have to spend on their regeneration schemes, their hotels and everything else, which sadly here in particular in Torbay we have not had. We have had a little bit of Objective 2 funding but nothing like the volume of money that has gone into Cornwall. Because of that they are able to stand tall, be proud and very bold about offering their product in Cornwall. In terms of regionalisation, if you were going to the Scilly Isles for a holiday you would probably zone into the Scilly Isles first and then you would choose which part of the Scilly Isles you want to stay at, whichever area I am trying to give as an example. Devon certainly should have a much stronger brand rather than just being part of the southwest. I am not undervaluing what Southwest Tourism do in terms of marketing the southwest but I do think we have to be a little bit more, not localised but county-ised, if you like.

  Q607  Alan Keen: I have got a Middlesbrough accent still but I spent 45 years in West London and when I see the northeast of England marketed, and there are some wonderful places, some wonderful coastline, I would be more attracted to something describing Northumberland and the castles and separately the Yorkshire Moors, which I identify with very well myself. Do you agree with me that is where the concentration should be, on smaller units?

  Ms Hookings: Yes.

  Mr Bowater: Southwest Tourism have done some interesting research on this and there are a number of brands that the public recognise in the West Country. One of them is Cornwall which they recognise as a complete brand; another is Devon; and, within Devon, Dartmoor is recognised as a brand and when you say Dartmoor to people they say, "Oh, yes, that's down in Devon, isn't it?" and it is thought of as a single thing. There is probably some justification for marketing each of those areas because they already exist in the minds of our customers as a separate brand. In fact, Devon County Council have recently done some work on this and have come up with a Devon brand, it is just that they have not told very many people about it, but it is rather good. They have a whole branding strategy, they have got quite a nice strap line, which I think is "Devon, a different perspective" or something like that.

  Q608  Mr Sanders: Devon `elp us!

  Mr Bowater: Devon air! They have done some work on that and that is simmering along, I suppose.

  Q609  Alan Keen: My summary of what you say is more or less correct, that you want the private sector to have more direct involvement as well as the local authority, people who work very hard at it, but you want it more focused and equal money spent at a national level between Scotland, Wales and the English regions.

  Mr Milne Home: Could I bring it down slightly from your question. It is very dangerous to have too centralised an organisation, you do not get the personal touch, and I believe perhaps that is what has happened in the tourist industry now, that the destination management people in Cornwall have never come to me to talk about anything. We have never been consulted as TAVATA about anything. The drive to get together with three or four other associations and say let us try and go green in West Devon and East Cornwall and make something of that is coming from us, it is not coming from up top. You talk about the RDA, but they are somewhere up there and they do not impinge on us at all.

  Mr Bowater: They do not even impinge on us and we are pretty big in comparison to most businesses.

  Q610  Alan Keen: So really the tourism industry, right down to the local level, we all know is very fragmented and you are saying that not only is the industry fragmented but those working at a national and then regional levels are fragmented because they are not representing the views of the people.

  Mr Milne Home: They are not talking to us.

  Mr Bowater: They talk to each other quite a lot.

  Ms Hookings: Yes, I would agree.

  Q611  Alan Keen: Just one last question. I am a bit sceptical myself but can you see the Olympics having any relevance to your area?

  Ms Hookings: In Torbay we have successfully bid for three of the sports and I think that allows—

  Q612  Mr Sanders: Five venues.

  Ms Hookings: I think that allows us to go into the training camp brochure or something and we hope that somebody picks up on Torbay as being a vital place to train as regards sailing, cycling, judo, et cetera. If we were lucky enough to be successful in encouraging people down here and, here we go again, how much money have we got to market it, how can we get out there and get the people in, then obviously we are going to benefit. Just on the basis of the Olympics being in London I would like to think that there is going to be a cascade effect, London is full and everybody cascades and says, "Hey, let's get to the coast and enjoy a bit of fresh air". I am not sure in reality that would happen.

  Q613  Chairman: We are going back to produce a report to DCMS and if you have got one issue each what would you like us to put in the report, excluding what we have been working very hard at in the last few minutes?

  Mr Bowater: I would say just cut all of the marketing budgets at a local level. VisitBritain probably have a role marketing Britain overseas and trying to bring people in from overseas but I reckon that is just about the only marketing spend that can be justified, all the rest of it, if it is taken away, if it is useful will be replaced by the private sector. My firm belongs to a consortium of holiday firms in Cornwall called CAHA. It is the big agencies in Cornwall and Devon that have cottages in Cornwall, and most of them were outside all of the public sector marketing campaigns we were in, until the rules changed a couple of years ago and we were shifted out. I cannot say anyone is clamouring to be back inside those public sector marketing campaigns because they have not noticed any difference. If our experience is anything to go by then it is not very valuable. If we felt as a consortium that there was a need for a destination campaign or a campaign for "Book a Cottage in Cornwall" or something like that, then that group could very easily put together the funding to drive quite a significant campaign. As a firm, we spend over £600,000 a year on marketing, so we are knocking on the doors of some regions, and South Hams wish they had our money, but together those companies could easily put together quite a significant marketing campaign. There is no business case for it. We are all businessmen and there is no business case for it.

  Mr Milne Home: On a slightly different tack, I would suggest that the number of these agencies, which all seem to overlap, should be pruned down and those left should talk to the Association as part of their remit, which they do not at the moment.

  Mr Bowater: It should be run by the Association, should it not?

  Mr Milne Home: It should be run by the Association, quite right. It would be nice to have some of those quite substantial budgets flowing a little bit further down the bureaucratic chain. You end up with someone like us and Best of Bodmin, Southeast Cornwall, Drake's Dartmoor, we are all voluntary, we do not get paid a penny, and we are running quite big organisations. As an honorary secretary, I am probably doing two or three hours a day on it and you cannot go on like that. I do not think it is appreciated that we are actually providing a great service to our people which the paid organisations are not touching.

  Ms Hookings: Torbay Tourism Forum is not a marketing organisation, deliberately so. We believe in working in partnership with the people who have the wherewithal to do marketing. If I can turn that question on its head, so to speak. Obviously we all need marketing budgets of a value that are going to make a difference, an impact, and cause people to come to Great Britain, England, various parts of the country, but you cannot just throw more and more money at marketing if the product is not right. If I talk about Torbay, we have got a wonderful natural environment but our built environment is falling apart at the seams, as I hope you saw today. Money has to be found from central Government to support the regeneration of coastal towns in particular. Torbay Council on its own could never do it and the private sector do the best they can. You mentioned where you are staying tonight and you will see the reinvestment that has gone into the Grand, all private money. We cannot turn tourism around and we cannot stop the decline, even offering a quality grading, if the rest of the Bay does not come up to scratch and is a quality built environment. It is not just down to one factor at all and it is certainly not down to who spends marketing money in the best way, you need everything else in place to turn the fortunes of tourism in Britain around.

  Mr Bowater: I could not agree with that more, that is so spot-on. One bad experience from a visitor, a shabby street, an overflowing bin, the loos closed or even if the loos are open someone has taken a penknife to the wall plate that you wash your hands in. Tourism relies so heavily on the public environment so much more than any other industry. It is about the reputation of the public environment in the minds of visitors. The best marketing that you can do is to make sure the people who come and stay have a nice time and go back and tell their friends and family, "It's great, you should go too" and, guess what, it is free marketing. Everyone else who lives in the area benefits from the nice, clean streets and non-shabby roads and all the rest of that investment that is going into public spaces so you get an uplift in the willingness of the local community to welcome people as well: "Great, we're a tourist destination. Look at the place, it's great".

  Ms Hookings: We want to put pride back into our lives.

  Mr Bowater: Absolutely. That is marketing. If you really want to do marketing get the place looking nice and people having good holidays.

  Chairman: Thank you. We have one last quick question from Adrian Sanders.

  Q614  Mr Sanders: This is again on the statistics. I am determined that everybody is going to agree on this and it will be a firm recommendation. What statistics do you and other local businesses and associations collect? Is this data channelled upwards to the local authority or to a regional level?

  Mr Milne Home: None because it is something my members really are not interested in, and I do not have the time.

  Ms Hookings: Locally we would feed into the Devon surveys and if you are members of Southwest Tourism you would feed into their surveys. What I think is sad, and with all the experience we have in this country, is I cannot understand why the Government, I have to say the Government but VisitBritain if you like, does not develop a monitoring and measuring system that would suit the purposes. You are looking for facts and figures to justify your case, to justify the spend, if you like, but businesses do that within their own four walls. In terms of what statistics are going to stack up, I think the whole industry needs guidance from above and that aligns very nicely with what Europe is going to ask when we go for any bids that are available. There should be far greater thought put into what statistics are required from the industry and our role then would be to encourage all members of the industry to take those five or 10 minutes filling in those statistics because we are terribly bad at doing that, and I am not proud of that. I think the industry can encourage participation when they see that we have gone away from guestimates and are actually getting some accurate data which will allow better forecasting and certainly better figures when it comes to what is needed.

  Mr Bowater: We collect statistics on everything. We track every inquiry, where it came from, how much that cost. We process it from the first time we hear from somebody right through to the fifth, sixth, tenth or fifteenth time they book with us. We have statistics coming out of ears and it is the lifeblood of the business. Without those statistics we would not know where to spend money, what was or was not working. In the past we have provided some of those statistics on a non-attributable basis to Devon County Council or Southwest Tourism when they have asked. I have to say we have sort of given up, partly because we have not been asked and we were maybe the only people who were giving them any statistics so when the results came out we knew what they were going to be.

  Chairman: I think that is all we have. Can I thank our three witnesses for their evidence. Can I also thank all of you who have taken the trouble to come and attend this evening. The Committee will be publishing the evidence we have heard on our website within probably a couple of days. We will be producing a report which will also be published, I would imagine probably in five or six weeks, and that will go to the Government and the Government then has 60 days in order to provide a response to our recommendations. Thank you all very much.







 
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