Agenda item

Report of the Executive Director of Place (Lincolnshire County Council – A. Gutherson).

The Executive Director of Place, Lincolnshire County Council submitted a report setting out work being carried out to develop on a joint Lincolnshire basis a ‘Greater Lincolnshire Business Tourism’ product. It also tasked officers with delivering a programme which created an uplift in tourism income to the area through increasing the amount of expenditure by business tourists and considered whether a collaborative approach to tourism could provide the blueprint for collaboration on wider place marketing.

The report summarised ongoing collaborative Visitor Economy work being carried out by officers of Lincolnshire County Council, North Lincolnshire Council and North East Lincolnshire Council together with local district councils, Visit Lincoln and Lincolnshire Coastal Business Improvement District. It also explained associated work linked to the government’s former ‘Tourism Sector Deal’ which had now been superseded in June 2021 by its ‘Visitor Economy Recovery Plan’ supported by significant levels of funding through the ‘Help to Grow- Digital Scheme’, ‘Community Renewal Fund’ and the ‘Levelling Up Fund’.

The Executive Director in his report explained that a popular and successful two phased development of the www.visitlincolnshire.com website had been carried out, and emphasised the importance of tourism product development through a strong and coordinated approach to attract additional expenditure especially from business tourists. There was an opportunity to design what businesses needed for the future and to increase levels of spend by business tourists through two distinct approaches - increasing the amount of business events taking place in the area, and providing opportunities for the high numbers of visiting business representatives to spend money in the evening economy.  Officers had commissioned a feasibility study, due to report in September 2021 that would provide –

·           An improved understanding of the future needs and trends within business tourism

·           An overview of where Greater Lincolnshire can capitalise on these needs and trends; district by district and business tourism category by category

·           An appreciation of the attitudes and aspirations towards business tourism amongst the different categories of visitor economy providers in Greater Lincolnshire, and

·           Understand potential barriers to success for business tourism within Greater Lincolnshire

The study would be in two parts, with the first part completed by the end of August 2021-

(i)        Base Line Analysis, mapping, interviewingstakeholders – a baseline review to map out the existing offer, clarify the challenges and opportunities in developing business events in Greater Lincolnshire and the evidence to support a strategy for growing business including buyer input and views.

(ii)       Vision, Strategy & DevelopmentPlan – a visioning and engagement stage that sets out the ambition for growing business events in Greater Lincolnshire, gets the buy-in of key stakeholders and sets out the actions needed to deliver growth.

The report highlighted enormous benefits of the Greater Lincolnshire partnership working together on developing business tourism and providing strategic leadership on a fast-developing sector.

The Joint Committee discussed the development of a Tourism Plan which should contain a statement of ambition to include clear suggestions for the tourism industry as to how they would be supported with measurable targets and outcomes stating what could be offered and achieved collectively and by when. Similarly, this should address ‘innovative tourism’ across Greater Lincolnshire and how to utilise funding sources.

Ruth Carver (GLLEP) referred to the inclusion of refreshing jointly a previous ‘hotel study’ across Greater Lincolnshire to ascertain what the product offering was and also asking what customers would like as part of an ‘active leisure market’ to encourage greater numbers of potential tourists to stay longer.

The Joint Committee emphasised the need to identify changes to tourists’ behaviour ‘post pandemic’, with target hardening and providing opportunities for the ‘staycation’ and ‘business tourism’ market, and also identify further business opportunities available around events. It was important to really understand what Greater Lincolnshire offered and to develop that narrative and for example providing bespoke packages on offer through the visitlincolnshire.com website.

Resolved – (a) That development work on developing a Greater Lincolnshire Business Tourism product be addressed on a Joint Lincolnshire basis; (b) that officers deliver a programme which creates an uplift in tourism income to the area through increasing the amount of expenditure by business tourists; (c) that a collaborative approach to tourism be the blueprint for collaboration on wider place marketing, and (d) that the development of ‘Tourism Plan’ be submitted to the next meeting with a statement of ambition to include clear suggestions for the tourism industry across Greater Lincolnshire and how (i) they will be supported innovatively across various markets (ii) utilising funding sources, with measurable targets and outcomes stating what can be offered and achieved collectively and by when.