Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 163)
TUESDAY 24 MARCH 2009
MR TIM
HIRST, MR
MALCOLM VEIGAS
AND MR
NICK RHODES
Q160 Chair: Just to make sure we
have got it, you are not suggesting that the Government should
say: "You must do this", but would just say:
"When you are considering this space in the middle of the
town, think it could be used for: ... " and then give them
a long list, which would include a market? Is that it?
Mr Veigas: Basically, yes. It
would not just simply be a planning or a transport process that
you are asking the local authority to do; it is something that
adds, in overall terms, value because it can make that space do
something else, as well as being a transport route in any one
particular situation. It is like using a lamp-post: a lamp-post
is a lamp-post until you put a banner on it or until you put a
back-lit advert on it, and then it becomes an income stream. The
principle is pretty much the same, is it not, and I think that
is what I am trying to say.
Q161 Anne Main: You gave a wonderful
list of markets, and I would love to go and see all of them, but
they were all abroad. Do you think—and you probably could
just sell yourself as a tourism officer for those places—we
promote our markets enough? Would there be people sitting over
in Amsterdam saying: "Gosh, I really have to go to Leicester/Bradford/Bolton
market", because there are all those wonderful things on
offer that you have just described over there?
Mr Veigas: Yes, there would be,
and in 2004 and in 2006 that is exactly what Bradford did; they
installed a mile of market stalls and we got European traders
from 12 or 15 different countries to come and trade there for
four days. I think you asked whether or not traders go abroad.
There is an organisation called "Traders Abroad" who
do exactly that. So whilst we have got cohorts coming over here,
predominantly at Christmas and for continental markets, we have
the archetypal Englishman abroad in terms of a list of products
that sit within continental-style markets in Florence, as an example,
or in Rome.
Q162 Anne Main: I was not really
thinking of the market traders swapping; I was thinking of people
visiting us as destinations. Are you happy that the markets in
the UK are promoted enough for people to want to go to see them?
Mr Veigas: No, I think we could
do better with promotions, generally. If we were to better use
the food TV station, that would be really useful—if we had
our own TV station that would be even more useful. We are looking
at aggregating up advertising revenue, so in the North West, for
example, Wigan, Warrington, Bolton and Bury are coming together
and using local advertising in television to try and increase
footfall. The other thing is attaching it to food festivals, and
that is where the tourism operation really starts to bring big
dividends.
Mr Rhodes: I think there are certainly
pockets of good promotions within the markets industry, locally,
but I think it is fair to say that nationally the industry is
not very well promoted, for all sorts of different reasons, mainly
finance, but it could certainly raise the profile by organisations
coming together and actually promoting the markets industry as
a whole. It is something that is very sorely missed.
Mr Hirst: If I could just add,
it is not just about the market promoting itself, either; I think
it is thinking about—going back to Malcolm's point about
using city centre space as animated space—the wider visitor
economy. Markets are not pushed well on a UK basis but they are
not marketed well even on a regional basis. So, to go hand-in-hand
more with, say, tourism and the visitor economy operations across
regional and sub-regional areas, there is no reason why markets,
as much as other attractions or major events, could not be much
more entwined in the way they promote what they do. I think the
wider visitor economy is something the markets could make an impact
on.
Q163 Chair: Thank you very much indeed.
We are doing our best, as you have seen, to promote markets and,
hopefully, our report when it comes out will be another peg on
which publicity can be hung. So we would be more than happy for
everybody in their different localities, when the report comes
out, to make as much mileage as possible out of it. Thank you
very much for your contributions.
Mr Veigas: Thank you.
Chair: Thank you very much to Leicester
for organising the whole day.
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