Agenda item

The committee is requested to consider the attached report and its proposed recommendations to Cabinet.

The Chairman welcomed Mr S Oates, Economic Development Manager, to the meeting. The committee considered the report circulated with the agenda (copy attached to the official minutes).

The committee made comments, including the following:

·        Statistics demonstrate that in spite of attractions in the district day visitors numbers are low .cannot be encouraged to become staying visitors. Queried whether the figures were skewed by Goodwood events. Research was carried out May to August through the core summer season and we have quarterly figures from Visit England going back a number of years. A joined up approach would help to attract more inward investment for bed spaces.

·        A shortage in overnight tourist accommodation is identified in the studies. We need to get the visitor economy working, to extend the season, continue web and social media activity, linking to other demographics and activities. The first task is to open negotiations with Visit Chichester.

·        Developers will consider accommodation more favourably once the tourism season is extended and there are better offers all year round; then major investment will come in.

·        Partnership working with other tourist organisations to attract people to the district.

·        The standard research sample size used by Visit England was 400-500 people. A number of questions were asked leading to the summary level information set out in the supporting papers.

·        Queried building an exhibition hall in Chichester. That sort of facility could come into the district through existing projects and may be outside of the city.

·        Queried the change required for Visit Chichester - There would be negotiations with Visit Chichester to establish whether they would be willing to change the shape of the organisation, taking into account the cost involved and investment required from the public sector to facilitate it with the two funding partners, Chichester BID and the council. Then it would need to go out to the market to encourage others to invest in the new destination management organisation (DMO).

·        Tourist based industry represents 7.2% of all business in the district with a revenue of £411m in 2015. Queried the overall value of business revenue in the district. Mr Oates undertook to provide a written response on this.

·        Car parking charges were not deterring visitors to the city. Research showed that visitors considered our car parking charges reasonable. Occupancy was also not an issue.

·        Queried figures for serviced accommodation. Mr Oates undertook to provide this information if available. Mr Potter suggested ward members could establish how many providers there were in each area.

Mr Ransley stated that this council needed to encourage development of overnight accommodation for visitors in the district and to ensure that land for hotel accommodation was included in the Local Plan going forward. He suggested a further recommendation be added to Cabinet as follows: “That Cabinet sponsors a strategic review as to how this council can facilitate or encourage additional overnight accommodation in the district.” This was seconded by Mr Potter.

On the recommendations being put to the vote they were declared carried.

RESOLVED

That the committee notes the outcome of the visitor economy review.

RECOMMENDED TO CABINET

1)        That £50,000 annual partnership funding is allocated for five years from April 2017 to assist development of the district’s visitor economy.

2)        That a strategic review is sponsored as to how this council can facilitate or encourage additional overnight accommodation in the district.