VisitBritain, the national tourism agency, has announced its intention to ramp up its marketing activity to deliver a four-year match funded global marketing campaign. As agreed with its sponsoring department, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the organisation plans to use the major events taking place in Britain over the next few years – the Royal Wedding, the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic and Paralympic Games for starters – to deliver an additional £2 billion of visitor spend and an extra 50,000 jobs. Proposed organisational changes announced today, 9 February, take account of this ambition as well as addressing the 34% cut to VisitBritain’s budget announced in October 2010. The changes include reducing functions, activity and the numbers of markets in which it has a presence to ensure the maximum funds are allocated to marketing.
With this clear priority, VisitBritain has reviewed its activity to ensure that it:
- Delivers the Britain marketing programme, in partnership with the private sector;
- Focuses investment on those markets which offer the best immediate return and best future prospects for Britain;
- Delivers insights, trends and industry performance research;
- Maintains a streamlined advisory role in line with its statutory duty to advise Government on tourism.
Key features of the changes are:
The central marketing team will focus on delivering the global marketing campaign, ramping up partnership marketing and key account management with commercial partners. Digital and social media, PR, marketing and relationships with 2012 stakeholders remain a priority.
VisitBritain will continue to develop its online retail service to deliver a commercial dividend to the organisation and suppliers.
Digital capabilities enable VisitBritain to maintain a global footprint with consumer, trade and media websites, but it will cut overheads overseas by reducing its presence from 35 markets to 21 overseas markets, based in 24 key cities (see Notes to Editors for proposed locations). These markets provide a wide geographic spread across the world, accounting for 80% of inbound tourism spend.
Staff in overseas offices will continue to gather market intelligence; look after trade and press contacts, arrange and facilitate sales missions and trade events; secure partners on-territory and also look after public diplomacy liaison, as well as help deliver the marketing programme.
VisitBritain will continue to provide research, market intelligence and analysis to inform the industry and to deliver on its statutory duty to advise Government on matters related to tourism, in particular those areas that affect Britain’s global competitiveness.
The national tourist boards are very active in business tourism so VisitBritain will reduce its level of business tourism activity. It will provide a bid support service to attract international conferences, conventions and major sporting events and provide an export platform for the UK industry in those overseas markets, where business and leisure operators are one and the same, such as China and Russia as well as business extender information on its websites.
The lease on Lower Regent Street for the Britain and London Visitor Centre expires in 2012. It will not be renewed and discussions are taking place with other agencies on the provision of tourist information in London.
In line with the requirement to reduce admin costs, the agency will also reduce staff and budgets in support areas such as Finance, IT, HR and Communications.
VisitBritain and VisitEngland will remain co-located at their offices at 1 Palace Street in London, sharing HR, IT and finance services to ensure costs are kept to a minimum, an arrangement that has run successfully since October 2009.
These proposed changes will lead to an overall reduction of between 25-30% posts – around 70 posts. Staff consultation is underway. The final outcome should be clear by the end of April.
Sandie Dawe CEO commented today: “This proposed new structure and focus reflects our priorities and is in line with our four-year funding settlement. Our goal is to maximise the tourism opportunities of hosting a raft of major iconic events over the next two years. We need to ensure that this clarity of focus is supported by the right structure and skills. I have every confidence in the professionalism and passion of my team to deliver on our ambitions and for our partners and the whole tourism industry”.
