COTSWOLDS AND FOREST OF DEAN TOURISM BUSINESS PLAN FIRST DRAFT 2010 - 2012 PREPARED BY COTSWOLDS AND FOREST OF DEAN TOURISM OFFICER ’S GROUP DECEMBER 24TH 2009 CONTENTS 1. Context 2. Our Purpose (‘Vision’) 3. Our Objectives 4. Scope of the Partnership’s Activities 5. Constitution and Legal Status 6. Resources ANNEX 1: Cotswolds and Forest Tourism 3 Year Budget Plan ANNEX 2: Cotswolds and Forest Tourism Marketing Plan 2010/11 ANNEX 3: Cotswolds and Forest Tourism Sustainability Plan 2010/11 to be added ANNEX 4: Skills Development Planning to be added 1. Context This is a Business Plan for the Cotswolds and Forest of Dean Tourism – one of nine ‘DMOs’ (Destination Management Organisations) in the South West of England established as part of the regional strategy “Towards 2015”. The first Business Plan was published last year and is a rolling three year plan. The first plan described how Cotswolds and Forest of Dean Tourism would become the voice for tourism in the destinations, deliver effective, sustainable tourism visitor services to the industry and the visitor and look to cut duplication of effort amongst the various City, town and rural destinations in the same County. At the time of writing, Chris Huckle is Project Managing a review of the structure of tourism support in the County with the aim of improving that structure and identifying synergy in the delivery of support to tourism; a £1bn industry for the County. This business plan reflects the current structure and is subject to change according to the outcome of the review project. The Regional Towards 201 5 Strategy recognised the Cotswolds and Forest of Dean as two of the key destinations within the South West. Within Gloucestershire there are two separate opportunities. The Forest of Dean is a destination that already more or less maps on to the district council area, as well as a strong Tourism Association. The Cotswolds , Gloucester, Cheltenham, Cotswold, Tewkesbury and Stroud districts have the opportunity to work together to benefit from the recognition of the Cotswolds ‘brand’ as an internationally recognised destination. In addition, the DMO seeks to work with non-Gloucestershire counties and districts for the benefit of the two wider destinations. The Tourism Industry will be the main beneficiary – in receipt of more focused marketing campaigns, a better research base and better support systems. District authorities have a key role – to join in leadership of an innovative, coordinated approach to tourism promotion, information management and delivery, to protect and promote the local strengths of their district area in order to ensure that Cotswolds and Forest Tourism reflects the real diversity of the destination. The DMO approach places local events and initiatives in a worldwide shop window and there are opportunities to work together on ‘big issues’ such as sustainability, product development, ‘new’ markets or, for example, opportunities created by the boost to Britain’s image created by the Olympic Games in 2012. The county tourism team’s role has been to encourage and deliver much of the change to date, whilst achieving high standards in promotion, managing the research programme, the local skills programme, industry partnerships and membership. 2. Our Purpose (‘Vision’) Our vision is to develop a Tourism Agency for the two destinations that is well-known and respected by the industry and public sector stakeholders. Specifically we seek to offer high standards of leadership, knowledge and commitment to tourism to our public and private sector partners. 3. Our Objectives Objective Success Criteria 1 To be a strong voice for tourism, to publicise the ‘case’ for tourism Local media coverage (its economic, social and environmental significance) within the Complaint and praise County and to represent the interests of tourism on key regional and levels Gloucestershire policy, economic and tourism groups Self assessment 2 To deliver high quality destination marketing, promotion, visitor Response rates and information and booking facilities through the effective coordination industry buy in. Web of resources and good relationships with the local tourism industry research. 3 To undertake research to inform decision making, to help monitor As delivered progress and celebrate success and to interpret and communicate this intelligence to the industry, to other stakeholders, to the media and to wider audiences 4 To work with organisations outside the county/region to ensure the Tangible progress of brands of FOD and Cotswolds are used coherently and according to brands and development the policy of the DMO of ‘out of county’ partnerships 5 To encourage and support well designed and well managed Research feedback and environment for the benefit of the local community and visitors customer comments. Web research. 6 To promote and encourage quality standards, skills development, Tourism Skills Network business innovation and environmentally sustainable tourism action plan progress. practices Targets to be set in DMO Sustainability plan. 7 To promote membership and to establish working groups and Membership take up and networks as tools to deliver its responsibilities and encourage assessment of value of working partnerships and participation by all aspects of the industry networks. Cotswolds and Forest Tourism will undertake these functions for the County of Gloucestershire and where possible with partners out of county involved in the Cotswold and Forest of Dean destinations. It will be given the necessary support and profile by its partners for it to achieve these objectives. The DMO will secure sufficient resources to enable these activities to be undertaken in a more robust way than is currently possible. In particular by tuning its activities to the needs of the industry and the visitor, it will attract tourism industry support and the creation of self-help networks. Local authorities will realign their priorities to avoid duplication of activity that will enable redeployment of resources where required. 4. Activities This section describes the scope of Cotswolds and Forest of Dean Tourism, more detail is contained in the specific plans for Sustainability, Promotion and Skills Development. • Market intelligence gathering • Sustainability • Communications and PR • Marketing • Visitor services • Product development and industry services • Destination management • Membership Delivery, as now, is through the resources available within the county – local authority budgets, staff time and income from the industry and support agencies. The DMO continues to ask all partners to sign up to improved support for tourism by the co-ordinating of activity in the county. Market Intelligence The DMO will be responsible for commissioning and/or coordinating Countywide: • Annual volume and value research for Gloucestershire and the ‘Cotswold’ and ‘Forest’ destinations. • The DMO will seek money to improve the quality of research work, to include: Regular market intelligence and trends work, visitor surveys, attractions surveys, accommodation occupancy checks and How’s Business? s urveys Sustainable Tourism Our sustainability activities are described in the annual published Sustainability Plan, attached to this report. We use the so called ‘VICE model’ to define success: Meeting the needs of the visitor, industry and community within environmental limits”. Cotswolds and Forest Tourism is committed to the challenge and will also work closely with the AONB/ Cotswold Conservation Board in its bid for a European Sustainability Charter award. ‘Corporate’ Communications and PR The DMO: • communicates with the local tourism industry and other stakeholders through an industry portal on the website, eNewsletters and business networks. • communicates and promotes the benefits of tourism to the local community and stakeholders through local media Marketing The DMO: • publishes an annual Marketing Plan, attached to this report. • delivers destination marketing for the agreed brands of Cotswolds and Forest of Dean within the UK and overseas leisure markets • develops thematic marketing activity linked to business networks and product development activity. • organises ‘familiarisation’/PR activity for destination marketing for the press, travel trade etc. • optimises and/or develops www.cotswolds.com and www.visitforestofdean.co.uk as the two main customer facing websites. It also has a programme of electronic ‘relationship’ marketing, social network marketing. • represents the industry and public sector tourism partners at key trade and travel exhibitions and events using the Cotswolds and Forest of Dean brands • will improve its support to the conference/meetings sector in 2010. Visitor Services • Cotswolds and Forest Tourism coordinates data gathering and (Forest of Dean runs its own system) and the management of information through to regional and national websites. • Over time, the DMO will look to establish a single distribution and call centre for certain functions. The DMO will determine which elements of booking and fulfilment will be dealt with centrally. This decision will be based on what is the most cost-effective solution that also delivers an excellent service to the customer. Experience elsewhere shows that centralised systems that are well designed and well managed can generate new and additional sales. The DMO will consider the opportunity a centralised system might offer to reach new markets and to make a distinction between call handling, data entry and booking fulfilment