Review
of Tourism Development in Yorkshire
My entire career in tourism has been straddled between Yorkshire
and London. I have recently taken up residence in Yorkshire once
again after working with Mary Tebje at Tower Bridge and Pat Holmes
at Tower Hamlets and have recently left Yorkshire Forward, the
Regional Development Agency, to start up my own marketing consultancy
business. I thought it might be interesting to share tourism development
in Yorkshire with the industry in London.
Yorkshire Forward gained strategic responsibility for tourism
in the region in April 2003 as part of the national tourism reform
programme. Yorkshire Forward now provides the lead on tourism strategy
across the region, as well as structures of support for tourism,
and as I am sure you can imagine, it has been a rocky road!
On
acquiring lead responsibility for tourism, Yorkshire Forward
embarked upon
a difficult programme of review and consultation
of the roles and responsibilities for tourism support across Yorkshire
and the Humber. The programme was difficult because, as you might
expect in this fragmented industry of ours, this work stimulated
a lot of interest and debate(!) about the most appropriate tourism
support structures across the region – sound familiar?
This led to the spotlight being on the Yorkshire Tourist Board
whose role has now been defined as focusing on marketing and intelligence.
From April 2005, the Yorkshire Tourist Board will have in place
a new Board of 15 Directors primarily drawn from the private sector.
The funding is being provided by Yorkshire Forward to support its
new focus of regional marketing and branding, bringing visitors
to the region, as well as providing information, research and intelligence
to the sector.
Yorkshire
Forward has also supported the Yorkshire Tourist Board in delivering
key regional tourism activities over the last two
years. Two major promotional campaigns, Britain’s Biggest
Break in 2002-2003 and currently the £2.8m ‘Make Yorkshire
Yours campaign’, which includes TV advertising shown in London
and Central regions. Investment has also helped Yorkshire Tourist
Board to develop ‘Nexus’ as the regional input into
the EnglandNet programme, lead by VisitBritain, which will for
the first time provide a national on-line booking facility.
An interesting development for Yorkshire is their effort to encourage
continuing debate and inclusion with the creation of a regional
Tourism Council, an expert panel of public and private sector representatives
which will advise both Yorkshire Forward and the Tourist Board
on key tourism issues regionally. The first Tourism Council in
May 2005 focused on developing the tourism input into the Regional
Economic Strategy (RES), currently under review.
A more complex task which is proving harder to achieve is how
local authorities across the region can best complement the work
of the Yorkshire Tourist Board. Local authorities are currently
working on the most appropriate tourism support structures for
their sub regions with the aim of any new structures being up and
running by April 2006. This work will result in locally agreed
structures for identifying priorities for development, working
with the private sector and developing visitor management activities.
One key aspect of the new relationship between sub regional tourism
support structures and the Yorkshire Tourist Board is that only
one organisation (yet to be decided) in each sub region will be
asking the industry for membership subscriptions.
Yorkshire
Forward recently launched the consultation document ‘A
Strategic Framework for Tourism and the Visitor Economy’ to
contribute to the current review of the Regional Economic Strategy,
ensuring that tourism receives appropriate recognition in the new
RES given the extent of its economic importance to the region.
The Framework sets out Yorkshire Forward’s aspirations for
the growth and development of tourism, as well as priorities areas
for action and investment through to 2010. It includes a headline
target of 5% growth in tourism earnings each year in Yorkshire
and Humber from £4.2bn in 2003 to £5.9bn in 2010. This
target is derived from and will contribute to the Department of
Culture Media and Sport target in ‘Tomorrow’s Tourism
Today’ of £100 billion tourism earnings nationally
by 2010.
The Framework identifies the following objectives for tourism
in the region, for which specific actions will be developed over
the coming months:
• to be the ‘Leading Edge’ region
in tourism with higher quality, greater innovation and faster
growth than
the national average
• to
improve the quality of data available to support long term planning
and assist business to be more competitive
• to
achieve growth in the visitor economy which is consistent with
the principles of sustainable development
• to
achieve increases in visitor satisfaction by improving quality
of place and quality of product
• to
support business growth and innovation in tourism through the
Better Deal for Business Framework
• to
develop the entrepreneurial and business skills of the tourism
workforce and improve the general skill level in tourism
• to gain a strong competitive edge for Yorkshire & Humber
by providing state of the art information services
• to
be included in the Regional Tourism Marketing Strategy currently
being developed by Yorkshire Tourist Board
Jo Skinner
Project Management and Marketing Services
jo-skinner@tiscali.co.uk
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