Agenda item

The Committee is requested to receive the annual update report from Visit Chichester for 2018-19 and assess performance in line with the Service Level Agreement.

Mrs Peyman was joined by Ms Adlam, Destination Marketing Executive, and Mr Hobbs, interim Chairman and the CDC appointed representative for Visit Chichester.

Mr Hobbs introduced the report.  He thanked the previous Chairman, Mr Craig Gershater who had a challenging task to set up the corporate entity that became Chichester Vision.  What had become clear since he had become the interim Chairman was the sense that the name ‘Chichester’ was causing disquiet in other areas of the District who felt that a lot of the activities were ‘Chichester centric’.  Visit Chichester was trying to increase tourism by encouraging people outside the District to visit.  It was important, therefore, to consider how the project could broaden its message.  He stressed that lot of work had been carried out to make it clearer that the project was about the Chichester District, including Midhurst, Petworth, Selsey and the whole of the Manhood area.  He explained that the purpose of Visit Chichester was to ‘Coordinate’ all the fantastic tourism activities that went on within the District, To ‘Help’, particularly the smaller organisations that may not have the ability to promote themselves, and also in a more coordinated way to the wider community.  ‘Inspire’ people to buy into Visit Chichester’s message and ‘Inform’ because he felt that the Visit Chichester’s messages were not necessarily getting out to the wider community.  The potential for third party funding from a National cycling organisation was being investigated to fund a network of 20-30 bicycle destinations, such as shops or public houses around the District.  Each destination could have maps promoting activities and local businesses etc, encourage people to stay overnight and possibly provide bicycle hire.  He enthused that if Visit Chichester was doing its job it should present opportunities to the Council and other organisations for joint funded opportunities to make a difference to the community, assist the climate change agenda, the broader tourism agenda, and encourage everyone in the District to make a contribution and think about how they could inspire their own local communities.  He referred to the fantastic education establishments in the District and advised that there could be an opportunity to engage some of these students in projects to help individual parishes.  Most importantly young people could be given work experience or other opportunities that would assist their CVs. 

The Chairman welcomed Ms Adlam to the meeting.

Ms Adlam provided details of current activities.  A new membership scheme was being launched on 17 September 2019 at its first networking event at the Guildhall, Priory Park, Chichester.  The aim was to bring the community and businesses together to benefit from what Visit Chichester.  The first walking event, of 21 walks, had taken place recently over a weekend with 160 people attending. On a wider scale there were a number of exciting projects happening, such as, access to a new PR database with the hope of increasing local and national newspaper coverage.  Work had taken place with travel magazines to run Chichester District led features.  Funding had been secured from the BID for the display of large train posters across 50 different sites to promote the Secret Chichester campaign, which was the first part of a concept called Secret Sussex, which would include mini campaigns for Midhurst, Petworth and Selsey.  Discussions were in place with partners to help fund campaigns and discussions had taken place with the South Downs National Park for match funding.  Visit Chichester was trying to leverage all the opportunities it could to get maximise exposure for the District.

The Chairman was pleased to hear that Visit Chichester’s focus was on encouraging visitors to visit the whole of the District, as there were many wonderful things to do and places to visit.  He commented that visitors could holiday in the District and not need to leave for a number of days as there was so much to do.

The Committee made the following comments which were answered by Mr Hobbs:

·      A request was made for someone, to speak to the Committee about Destination Management Plans:  Visit Chichester was hoping to run a session for all members and could include this topic.   He advised that the amount of energy people put into Visit Chichester would be reflected back.  If everyone was to look at themselves and persuaded their local tourism organisations to think about think about how they could contribute it would help maximise the message.

·      With regard to the cycle network, was there anyway, although it was noted this was not part of Visit Chichester’s remit, that they could encourage the organisations that were able to do something to make a better and safe network?: Although it was outside the their remit, if a brief was prepared on the matter, Visit Chichester would ask the Council for funding.  If a network was created, it was extraordinary how other people would use that enabled environment to create something much more than they offered presently.  Therefore he was asking for a different mind-set, as there could be more that local businesses could do to in terms of their proposition, e.g. bed and breakfasts could offer free bicycle use and maps so guests could use the network and its pit stops this provided an added value.  We as a community through the organisation should help fund this, as if there was no investment people would come up with good ideas and use this to their advantage.

·      A comment was made that the northern areas of the District were the ‘gateway’ to Chichester. To pull all information together for the whole benefit of the District was something that could be done to bring visitors and economic benefits to the community. 

·      Were there any links to other colleges in the District that taught travel and tourism?: Relationships were currently being rebuilt specifically with Chichester University to help the students find relevant work experience that would assist them in their future careers.   If the Chichester University could be open minded about creating projects this would benefit both the students and Visit Chichester they were open to any suggestions.  He added that formal contracts were agreed with any students working for them. 

·      Role of ambassadors in parishes?: Ambassadors could nominate a member to lead tourism and to think about what could be done within their own parishes.

·      A suggestion was made about providing advertising leaflets in public houses etc: Ideally Chichester Vision would like to make the most of the social media age and have an app that to find details of the local facilities available, but this would cost money.

The Committee thanked Mr Hobbs and Ms Adlum for their summary of what Visit Chichester was doing for the District in terms of tourism and were pleased to hear the positivity, enthusiasm and vision for Visit Chichester. 

The Committee agreed that a member presentation would be beneficial with the aim of encouraging members to promote Visit Chichester to their parishes as ambassadors to the District.

RESOLVED

That the annual update report from Visit Chichester for 2018-19 be noted and it be agreed that Visit Chichester is achieving performance in line with the Service Level Agreement.