Market Town Welcome Destination Plan for Chester-le-Street July 2010 “Chester-le-Street - a great north market town, home of the Durham Emirates Cricket Ground and proud of its Christian heritage” Report to Visit County Durham, Durham County Council and Chester-le-Street Area Action Partnership By Alison Caffyn, with the support of tourism partners in Chester-le-Street Alison Caffyn Tourism Research Consultant Little Bury Farm Luston Leominster Herefordshire, HR6 0EB www alisoncaffyn.co.uk Contents 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 2 1.1 Background and rationale ...................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Strategic Context - regional, county and town ........................................................................ 3 1.3 Process and partnership ........................................................................................................ 5 2. Vision and Objectives .................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Vision Statement for Chester-le-Street................................................................................... 5 2.2 Overall Objectives of the Destination Plan ............................................................................. 6 3. Visitors to Chester-le-Street .......................................................................................... 7 3.1 Survey Results ...................................................................................................................... 7 3.2 Current Visitor Profiles and Segmentation ............................................................................. 8 3.3 Visitor of the Future ............................................................................................................. 10 4. The Tourism Offer ........................................................................................................ 11 4.1 What does our town offer visitors? ....................................................................................... 11 4.2 SWOT Analysis ................................................................................................................... 13 4.3 Meeting future visitor expectations ....................................................................................... 15 4.4 New developments currently planned .................................................................................. 15 5. Destination Management and Promotion ................................................................... 15 5.1 The Strategy ........................................................................................................................ 15 5.2 The future visitor experience ................................................................................................ 16 5.3 Destination priorities ............................................................................................................ 17 6. Action Plan .................................................................................................................... 17 6.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 17 6.2 Chester-le-Street Destination Plan – Action Plan ................................................................. 19 6.3 Key projects ......................................................................................................................... 25 6.4 Common themes to develop with other towns...................................................................... 37 6.5 Taking the Plan Forward ...................................................................................................... 39 7. Annexes ........................................................................................................................ 40 7.1 Market Town Welcome Template ........................................................................................ 41 7.2 Market Town Welcome in Chester-le-Street - Participants ................................................... 43 7.3 Tourism Audit ...................................................................................................................... 44 7.4 Visitor Market Segments ...................................................................................................... 59 1 1. Introduction This Destination Plan for Chester-le-Street sets out agreed common priorities for developing and promoting Chester-le-Street as a destination. It is designed to be a working document that can be added to as the town and its partners identify new opportunities for development and is intended to steer a way forward over the next 5-10 years. The purpose of the plan is to: • Develop the tourism potential of Chester-le-Street and strengthen its identity for visitors • Provide a framework and rationale for investment and development planning in the tourism sector within the town • Identify priority actions • Clarify how partners and agencies can work together to deliver the destination plan 1.1 Background and rationale Objectives of Market Town Welcome The Market Town Welcome Programme has involved developing destination plans for market towns in County Durham. The Programme aims to complement other local and regional regeneration strategies and initiatives and to take a tourism perspective to each of the market towns – viewing them through a visitor‟s eyes as a destination. Four towns had destination plans written in March 2009: Barnard Castle, Bishop Auckland, Seaham and Stanhope. Chester-le-Street‟s plan has followed a year later during spring 2010. The Objectives of the Programme are: • Developing the tourism potential of each town • Inputting to investment/development planning • Harnessing private sector potential • Using the destination plan to support funding bids • Encouraging collaboration and cross fertilisation of ideas • Strengthening the identity of each town for visitors • Boosting the visitor economy in each town Background to Market Town Welcome Market Town Welcome originated in 2008 when One North East commissioned Miller Research and Alison Caffyn to develop a methodology to generate destination plans, initially for six market towns in Northumberland: Berwick, Alnwick, Seahouses, Wooler, Haltwhistle and Amble. Since then Guisborough, Cleveland; Hexham and Morpeth, Northumberland; and now the five County Durham towns have been going through the same process. The Market Town Welcome process was developed to incorporate the principles of the „VICE model‟ for local destination management. This model was developed by the national tourism agencies and Tourism Management Institute to encourage the sustainable development of tourism. It aims to ensure positive outcomes for Visitors, the tourism Industry, local Communities and the built and natural Environment. So the destination plans aim to develop tourism which: • Welcomes, involves and satisfies Visitors • Achieves a prosperous and profitable Industry 2 • Engages and benefits host Communities • Protects and enhances the local Environment Why welcome visitors? The visitor economy is particularly significant in rural areas where there are few alternatives and traditional industries such as agriculture or mining have declined. Tourism has increasingly been seen as a vital element in the regeneration of an area. Not only does the visitor economy support businesses, jobs and the suppliers to those businesses, but visitors‟ spending also helps support local heritage, culture (eg festivals and events) and community services (buses, shops, pubs, post offices). Tourism is also a reason to conserve special buildings, historic buildings, beautiful landscapes and important wildlife sites. Figures for County Durham in 20091 reveal that there were: • 16.34 million day visitors spending nearly £362 million • 1.5 million staying visitors staying 4 million nights and spending about £292 million • Total revenue generated £654 million • Supporting 9,056 jobs directly in the visitor economy and another 2,204 jobs in other sectors indirectly Figures for Chester-le-Street in 20062 estimated that the district received 2.6 m visitors spending £67m, supporting 1,346 jobs. 1.2 Strategic Context - regional, county and town The strategic context for this work is the Regional Economic Strategy which aims to foster the renaissance of key rural settlements as drivers of regional growth. The North East England Tourism Strategy (2005-10) identified market towns as key elements in the attraction of the North East for visitors and proposed that towns should develop plans to make improvements in facilities to meet the needs of increased visitors. It highlighted the potential for making more of regional food, improved shopping and public art as well as basics such as visitor information and signing. Studies have also been completed into developing cruise tourism along the North East coastline and into the potential for making more of events and festivals. A new regional Tourism Strategy is in preparation By One North East which aims to significantly improve visitor yield and tourism growth – increasing the numbers of visitors and earnings per visitor, whilst reducing seasonal and spatial disparities in growth across the region. In terms of the positioning of the North East‟s tourism product the following