Archived decisions

Contact: Andrew Bateman, ext 5478, [email protected]

1. Introduction

1.1 Hampshire Borders Tourism (now North Hampshire Tourism, NHT) was established in 1987, funded by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, Hart District Council and Rushmoor Borough Council. A tourism officer was appointed and the management contract awarded to the Southern Tourist Board in 1989. The following years saw a number of tourism officers develop the operation. Hampshire County Council (HCC) became a funding partner in 1995 and funding was put on a more permanent footing in 1997. A Joint Management Committee consisting of three elected members from each of the funding authorities has met regularly to oversee the operation of the service.

1.2 Recent years have seen the operation develop under proactive management with a number of successes including the development of a series of cycle-trails and the initiation of the `Hampshire's Countryside' partnership in conjunction with Test Valley and East Hampshire districts.

1.3 However, the service currently needs to change as a consequence of both funding and wider tourism industry and consumer developments. This paper highlights many of the current issues surrounding the service and identifies a credible and realistic option for its future development that Hampshire County Council can support.

2. The Need For Change

2.1 A series of national and regional factors have conspired to make a change in North Hampshire's tourism operation a necessity. Consumers now make greater use of new technology to find information and when taking decisions on where to visit and stay. Traditional methods of communication (printed material, exhibitions etc) are becoming less important as a means of delivering information. The regional tourist board, Tourism South East are currently developing a `Hub' of regional tourism information for onward delivery to national level. They will feed directly into those regional and national channels and allow for regional, national and international marketing of destinations. Local authorities are also committed to delivering more services on-line.

3. Current Financial Contributions

3.1 North Hampshire Tourism has highlighted for a significant period of time that funding constraints have curtailed the operations' activities. Partnership working with Test Valley Borough Council and East Hampshire District Council under the `Hampshire's Countryside' brand in recent years has helped to ameliorate this. However, Hart District Council and Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council have both given notice of their intention to terminate their membership of the Joint Management Committee (JMC) with effect from 2005.

3.2 Current local authority contributions for 2003/4 are as follows

3.3 The cessation of support from Hart DC and Basingstoke and Deane BC, will ensure that the current operation is not viable with the remaining level of support from the remaining partners.

4. Visit Destination Management System (DMS)

4.1 The Visit DMS was initially developed by Hampshire County Council in conjunction with Winchester, Southampton and Eastleigh local authorities. It provides tools to market, sell and manage tourism information. At the touch of a button, Visit gives prospective tourists and local residents alike swift and easy access to information on Hampshire about places to stay, things to see and do, events, places to eat and drink, local shops and more. Already used by 18 tourist and visitor information centres across Hampshire, with more in the pipeline, Visit is currently being extended right across the South East of England.

4.2 Visit is currently installed in the North Hampshire Tourism office, Basingstoke TIC, and Fleet TIC. Aldershot VIC may well have the system in the near future. However, the Visit system is currently underutilised within the NHT area. The likelihood is that the North Hampshire area is not capturing all potential tourism business or dealing with it in a timely and financially rewarding way.

4.3 However, it is apparent that TIC and tourism service staff find it difficult to fully utilise the capabilities of the system because of competing work priorities and skills that are not readily suited to developing Visit.

4.4 Although the role of the Hampshire County Council Visit team is to effectively roll-out the system in Hampshire and provide a level of support and training, it is the responsibility of North Hampshire Tourism to capitalise on this support in a proactive way and ensure that the system is used successfully by the tourism industry in North Hampshire. North Hampshire Tourism needs to work more closely with the Visit team in order to maximise its tourism opportunities with Visit. The Visit system is flexible and can be shaped to meet North Hampshire Tourism's specific needs.

5. A Way Forward

5.1 Officers from the partner authorities identified that it was unrealistic to expect NHT to continue to deliver a fully fledged tourism service in an arena of declining financial resources. They also saw an urgent need for the Visit system infrastructure to be exploited more effectively in North Hampshire, otherwise the investment to date would not be maximised. However, this would have to be at the expense of other marketing and development activities as the levels of funding that could be committed would be considerably reduced from previous levels. Re-orienting the service to exploit the full potential of the Visit DMS was identified as the preferred solution.

5.2 However, the impact of re-structuring the delivery of the service would also affect the staffing structure. The three staff members (two FTE) would need to be rationalised to one FTE. Although the feasibility of training the current members of staff within the North Hampshire Tourism Service were assessed, the opinion was that the necessary skills and capabilities for the role of a Visit Manager could not be met by any of the existing members of staff. Therefore there would be a need to advertise for a new member of staff to fulfil the new role.

5.3 It was proposed that the new structure is implemented from April 2004. Therefore it is critical that the current level of funding from the partners is retained for 2004/5 and thereafter a reduced level of support is agreed that will enable the service to operate until 2006/7.

5.4 The table below indicates the proposed level of funding for the service. The contributions for 2005/6 and 2006/7 have taken into consideration that Rushmoor BC have offered to provide office accommodation for the post that will incur expense. The Basingstoke contribution also reflects the fact that it has a considerably greater share of the tourism product than Rushmoor and Hart and therefore is in a stronger market position. The balance of £16,840 at the end of 2006/7 is a contingency sum that may also be required for redundancy payment if deemed necessary.

North Hants Tourism Budgeting 2004-2007
Partner	2004/5	2005/6	2006/7
Basingstoke & Deane BC	28,750	12,000	12,000
Hampshire County Council	19,350	10,000	10,000
Hart District Council	13,660	5,000	5,000
Rushmoor Borough Council	21,080	5,000	5,000
Reserves	20,000
Income Sub-Total	102,840	32,000	32,000
Balance b/f		52,840	34,840
Income Total	102,840	84,840	66,840
Proposed Expenditure	50,000	50,000	50,000
Balance	52,840	34,840	16,840

5.5 At a meeting of the North Hampshire Joint Tourism Committee on 17 December 2003 it was decided that

· The North Hampshire Joint Tourism Committee continued until 31 March 2005.

· The current level of financial contributions from the partners were retained for 2004/5. From 1 April 2005 reduced financial contributions are implemented that enable the service to operate until 2006/7.

· A Visit Manager is appointed from 1 April 2004 on a three year short term contract to develop and market use of the Visit Destination Management System. The post holder will be based in North Hampshire and line managed by the Tourism Section of Hampshire County Council.

5.6 However, it is also proposed that the `Hampshire's Countryside' consortium also continues. This joint initiative between North Hampshire Tourism, Test Valley, East Hampshire and Hampshire County Council, will ensure that printed visitor guides will continue to be produced that can continue to feature accommodation and attraction providers in the North Hampshire area. This will ensure that those providers who are yet to realise the benefit of new technology can continue to feel that they are supported.

5.7 Hampshire County Council's reduced contribution to NHT from 2005/6 will be used to assist the development of events and other tourism related activities in the North Hampshire area. This will ensure that the area does not suffer a reduction in support.

6. Alternatives

6.1 The Tourism Officers Group in the North Hampshire area looked at a number options but only identified this solution to enable the development and continuation of the service. The only other alternative to the suggested solution would be to terminate the tourism service for North Hampshire. This was not identified as a credible option because each local authority would have to determine its own level of involvement in tourism and it was unlikely that tourism in the area would move forward. The annual investment in the Visit system would not be cost-effective and the system would be underutilised as TICs would have to accept responsibility for developing and managing the system without close support. There may well be negative reaction from stakeholders.

Recommendations

1. To support the re-structuring of North Hampshire Tourism as agreed by the North Hampshire Joint Tourism Committee on 17 December 2003 and ensure that the organisation has a future that reflects both the changes in the partner funding commitment and the changing needs of the tourism industry.

2. To retain the financial commitment of Hampshire County Council for 2004/5 at £19,350. Thereafter, contributions to reduce in conjunction with the other district partners, for 2005/6 and 2006/7 to £10,000.

3. The Tourism Section to line manage the North Hampshire Visit Manager and hold the partners' budget for the service.

4. To review the commitment to North Hampshire Tourism in conjunction with other funding partners before 2006/7.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

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