inspire, engage, connect.

Interview with Paul Simpson, Managing Director, Visit 24 April 2012

How is Visit Manchester delivering against the Strategic Framework objectives and in particular objective 2: To develop compelling destinations?

Visit Manchester was created in 2004 following Marketing Manchester (created 1996) being given strategic responsibility for tourism in by the Northwest Regional Development Agency. The Strategic Framework for has helped develop our vision for Greater Manchester to be a more compelling destination. The Greater Manchester Destination Management Plan 2012-13 (which sits below the tourism strategy, ‘A Tourism Strategy for Greater Manchester 2008-13’) follows the Strategic Framework’s approach by establishing the following objectives:

• create globally recognised and iconic events, developments, initiatives and opportunities;

• ensure a better quality of life for the communities of Greater Manchester and the wider City Region;

• make the practices of the City Region’s tourism sector a key plank of delivering against the Original Modern brand vision;

• tackle the tough issues like wider community benefits through tourism; accessibility and diversity; a more inclusive night-time economy;

• embark on a ‘blue skies’ strand of long range thinking that explores issues such as technological change, demographic shifts and environmental sustainability.

Manchester’s key ingredients of success are:

1. Very strong civic leadership - there are 10 Local Authorities throughout the Greater Manchester area (, Bury, , Manchester, , , , , , ) and for many years they have worked in close collaboration with each other and with Marketing / Visit Manchester. There is very strong civic leadership that exists across Greater Manchester, particularly in the form of AGMA (Association of Greater Manchester Authorities). This strength is particularly prominent in Manchester City Council through the Leader and Chief Executive who have, for many years, recognised the value of tourism as an important economic sector. The Commonwealth Games in 2002 as well as the IRA bomb in 1996 were catalysts (in very different ways) that acted as a focus on tourism as a positive driver of change.

2. Partnership approach - Visit Manchester and Marketing Manchester1 have established strong partnerships with both private and public sectors over a number of years and are now part of a ‘family’ of Manchester agencies with designated lead status in Marketing and Tourism. Over the last six months partnership working has been developed further through the creation of the Manchester Visitor Economy Forum, chaired by Visit Manchester but consisting of senior representation from Greater Manchester’s visitor economy – business tourism, hotels, culture, sport, city centre management, airport, transport and local authorities.

1Marketing Manchester is the agency charged with promoting the City on a national and international stage. It aims to develop the Manchester city-region into a leading leisure, learning and business destination for domestic and international visitors, enhance the national and international reputation of the city-region and promote sustainable economic development and growth. Visit Manchester is the tourist board for the city-region and is a division of Marketing Manchester.

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3. Understanding of tourism and of the value of tourism – key stakeholders understand the value and volume of tourism and its importance as an economic sector. It is really important to continue to measure this and regularly invest in research & development – this is a key component in understanding tourism drivers and the challenges and opportunities within our sector. This is mainly through STEAM, hotel occupancy and visitor surveys but business tourism, over the last ten years has emerged as one of these key drivers across Greater Manchester (a study commissioned by Visit Manchester reported that, in 2009, the value of business tourism across Greater Manchester was £573m – by 2011 this had increased to £822m) and it continues to grow in importance for the city and the entire region. All stakeholders have worked together to grow the value and volume of business tourism resulting in Manchester hosting a number of high profile conferences including: Conservative and Labour Party Annual Conferences, CIPD, Soccerex European Forum, UNISON, TUC. The growth in business tourism has been supported by a continual investment in the conference product with key venues such as Manchester Central and County Cricket Club, Trafford undergoing substantial investment.

How did you go about developing a compelling destination?

We have worked with Local Authorities across the region to gain agreement that internationally, Manchester is seen as the attract brand. We have also developed a thematic approach, domestically, using themes such as Culture and Sport and through developing brands such as Modern History and Manchester’s Countryside which have been developed as specific campaigns funded by ERDF and RDPE. We have also helped to develop a rural tourism offer through the existing Tourism Connect and Food Connect RDPE projects. We have seen this approach paying dividends as a means of promoting the diverse offer of Greater Manchester and in engaging and including destinations throughout Greater Manchester.

Specific collaborative approaches include Manchester City Council transferring all of their visitor services (TIC operation) function to Marketing Manchester in 2003 and Bolton MBC appointing a new Head of Tourism for Bolton in 2004 through a joint recruitment process with Marketing Manchester and taking the decision to base the position jointly between the offices of Bolton MBC and Marketing Manchester.

We recognise that there are still negative perceptions of the city region, nationally and internationally, and so we aim to influence perceptions by providing an exceptional experience to our visitors, one which exceeds their expectations. A number of attractions and infrastructure projects have been developed across Greater Manchester since 2008 including:

• MediaCity UK in The Quays, now the home to five BBC departments, ITV and a number of creative and digital agencies, includes new hotels, retail, food and drink, leisure and the launch of BBC Tours.

• completed its £80m investment in the redevelopment of both Terminal 1 and 2 including improved security processes, new retail spaces and improvements to arrival and departure lounges.

• A £30m three phase development of Manchester Central to create additional and more flexible spaces including a new foyer, entrance and events space.

• The Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) has had a £9m investment into a new Revolution Gallery, conference and learning centre, shop and café, all of which opened in January 2011.

• The People’s History Museum re-opened in 2010 following a £12.5m redevelopment.

• Manchester Art Gallery along with other North West museums has been in receipt of funding to improve exhibitions and attendance.

• In Bury a new Lancashire Fusilier Museum opened in 2009 and the redevelopment of Bury Transport Museum (£3m) was completed in 2010.

• Bolton Museum, Aquarium and Archive was extended and improved through a £500k redevelopment programme.

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• Event City opened near to the Trafford Centre in 2011 providing additional event and exhibition facilities.

• The Point at Lancashire County Cricket Club, Trafford, opened in 2010 following a £190m development of the site as a world class venue fit to host international cricket, including enhanced conference and event facilities.

• The opening of Salford City Stadium in January 2012, home to Salford Reds and Sale Sharks.

• Successful establishment of regular themed markets in Stockport including vintage, handmade and crafts, and local producers.

• 14 new hotels have opened across Greater Manchester since 2008.

Influence has also been achieved through domestic and international marketing campaigns developed in collaboration with partners such as Manchester Airport and as a result a positive shift in perceptions has been tracked in the Anholt City Brands Index. Since 2009 Manchester has moved ahead of Dubai and Dublin, pulled an extra three places clear of , and has closed the gap on Brussels and Chicago – only one and two places behind respectively in 2011, whereas we were seven and eight places behind in 2009. Perceptions in our priority target markets have also improved, with the USA, China and Brazil showing the strongest improvement between 2009 and 2011, and the UK having the most positive shift between 2007 and 2009.

After the Commonwealth Games, Manchester City Council appointed Peter Saville (a designer of unique influence who had co-founded the legendary independent music label Factory) to help take the marketing of Manchester to the next level. He developed a unique brand concept and approach called ‘Original Modern’ which is really about the way we think, work and what we aspire to. Marketing Manchester has taken this fully on board to inform all we do. The Manchester International Festival is a key example of it – a festival of newly commissioned work. Everything we do must be ‘original modern’ and it is a measure of success. This ensures we are never complacent, always aspirational.

The launch of the Strategic Framework for England in 2010 has helped us to ‘up our game’ particularly in the critically important areas of Business Tourism and Visitor Information.

In the case of Business Tourism working with VisitEngland to develop the overall strand of the Framework has been a very helpful experience as we develop our own thinking. Significant progress has also been made with the opening of the all new Manchester Visitor Information Centre in 2010. The Manchester Visitor Information Centre is now accessing a much higher proportion of visitors as well as local residents and is scoring higher in most categories in the visitor satisfaction surveys. Reflecting changes in customer behaviour, this is the first visitor centre in Europe to use interactive Microsoft Surface Tables, allowing people to interact directly with the information available and discover a wide range of information independently. A Manchester Twitter feed streams onto screens and a 12-screen video wall advertises local and regional attractions. The primary asset of the Centre remains the experienced team of staff, who ‘walk’ the centre freely. The Manchester Visitor Information Centre has just (May 2012) been recognised as the ‘Visitor Information Provider of the Year’ at the English Tourism Awards.

Visit Manchester also completely redeveloped the thinking behind the provision of online visitor information through its website www.visitmanchester.com. It created a very open approach working on the basis that it had to be entirely content driven and this content was not necessarily official ‘tourist board speak’. Through blogs, twitter feeds and fully embracing social media the site will capture what is being said about Manchester to give the visitor a sense of what is happening now in the city from the perspective of people who work, live and visit.

The Strategic Framework will help us to further develop these priority areas.

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How was the activity funded?

We took a portfolio approach to funding. Marketing Manchester is a private company limited by guarantee with the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities and Manchester Airport providing core funding, helping us to lever in other funds.

The Northwest Regional Development Agency provided support and core and project funding from 2004 up until the end of 2011. However we have always recognised the need to engage with the private sector and going forward there will be little public sector funding available. That is why, a number of years ago we developed our own accommodation and conference booking tools generating commission, developed a full range of marketing opportunities for our members and, more recently, have developed branded merchandising.

How was success defined and measured?

We have seen an increase in the value of the visitor economy from £5.2 billion in 2008 to £5.8 billion in 2010. Also employment has grown from 73,000 in 2008 to 77,000 in 2010.

We have also focused on the value and volume of Business Tourism. The value of Business Tourism is £573 million and an increase substantial to this will be confirmed for 2011. Undoubtedly the political conferences have helped immensely (estimated impact at £13 m- £15 m per conference) but also important is the focus on the city, the perception and the fact that we are now recognised as a credible conference city.

Concerning the quality of life and overall perception of the city, this is measured by the Anholt City Index. (see page 3).

If you had to start again what would you do differently, which lessons would you transfer onto others?

There are a few learning points here:

1. Persevere with a sound concept and get key stakeholder buy-in. Marketing Manchester made some mistakes in its very early days particularly as it was trying to run before it could walk. The Commonwealth Games highlighted the need for an agency such as Marketing Manchester and by taking a bold step and reinventing the organisation, it was able to get back on track and learn from its earlier mistakes.

2. We should have communicated a little more effectively the first success stories once they began to emerge. We took a decision to become inward focused in order to create the organisation that was credible enough to promote the destination. This meant that we had a very low profile for a year or two and we could maybe have raised this profile with our key stakeholders a little earlier. This did no harm but maybe one or two of our stakeholders were not as aware of Marketing Manchester as we would have liked them to be during this re-formation.

3. Becoming a Tourist Board in 2004 was a steep learning curve so being better prepared; having a greater understanding of what a Tourist Board and a Destination Management Organisation really need to offer would have helped. We can now benefit from participation in the Destination Management Forum set up by VisitEngland as a vehicle for destinations to share different approaches, encourage collaboration, sharing experience and best practice in delivering the Strategic Framework and encouraging synergies and more effective ways of working.

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4. Our 2008-2013 Tourism Strategy should have had some clear targets, though we have developed these through our Destination Management Plan which is managed and monitored through the Manchester Visitor Economy Forum. A priority for 2012-13 has been the establishment of the Visitor Economy Forum as the principle stakeholder group overseeing destination management and visitor economy growth. This Forum is made up of cultural organisations, local authorities, sport organisations, universities, conference venues, hoteliers, the airport and others (see page 1).

Which obstacles have you overcome?

• As an organisation we had to rebuild trust a number of years ago following a difficult start to our existence in 1996/97. We did this through proactive communication, engagement and inclusion.

• Silos have been substantially diminished as Marketing Manchester and the local authorities have worked together to develop the role of Manchester as driver of (particularly) international tourism but have proactively engaged in promoting thematic brands.

• Whilst AGMA have always taken a positive approach to tourism, we have had to work at ensuring that tourism is seen as a key industry sector.

To address these issues, being open and transparent and ensuring an effective dialogue with all stakeholders was critical. We meet regularly with Local Authorities to feedback on success and challenges and the Manchester Visitor Economy Forum meets every other month ensuring that the key public and private sector stakeholders are actively engaged in visitor economy developments.

Engagement with industry and members is absolutely crucial. We appointed our own communication team and held 2/3 members meeting a year, circulating frequent bulletins and newsletters from Marketing Manchester.

What does the future look like?

Organisationally, Marketing Manchester and Visit Manchester are central to the Manchester family of agencies which work together to strengthen economic development, inward investment and tourism.

This collaborative approach is being seen as the preferable way of working by AGMA and the recent development of a 3-year integrated Manchester Family Business Plan should ensure that Marketing Manchester and Visit Manchester continue in this role for the foreseeable future.

In terms of Manchester, Business Tourism will continue to be a primary focus and the close partnership that exists with all the conference venues - but significantly Manchester Central - will be developed, and a targeted, joint approach to new business developed.

Major events on the horizon include the 2013 Manchester International Festival, the opening of the National Football Museum in July 2012, the 2012 Olympic Football at Old Trafford and of course the continuation of the many and varied major cultural and sporting events throughout the year.

What are your TOP-TIPS?

• Be bold and aspirational in your thinking. Be ambitious, push the boundaries.

• Get champions on side – people in the public and private sector, in tourism or other relevant sectors who are the key people that could be of help - critical friends.

• Focus on your strengths and local distinctiveness.

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