More tourists needed

[AlanShimmin]

41 minutes ago, SleepyJoe said:

Tourism allows us a wider ranger of facilities - bars, restaurants, & yes museums - than we would have without it 

Not IOM tourists. It might be true in Venice or Barcelona, not Douglas. 

[SleepyJoe]

Nonsense, the benefits are island wide

[John Wright]

36 minutes ago, AlanShimmin said:

Not IOM tourists. It might be true in Venice or Barcelona, not Douglas. 

 

15 minutes ago, SleepyJoe said:

Nonsense, the benefits are island wide

Venice and Barcelona suffer from being over touristed. That has an adverse impact on services and facilities for locals.

Tourism has positive and negative impacts on what is available to locals. It’s getting the right market, demographic and facilities to balance.

[AlanShimmin]

2 minutes ago, John Wright said:

 

Venice and Barcelona suffer from being over touristed. That has an adverse impact on services and facilities for locals.

Tourism has positive and negative impacts on what is available to locals. It’s getting the right market, demographic and facilities to balance.

Good point. What we are not getting is value for money - the endless millions poured into MNH, railways and other guff year after year. 

[Danoo]

Let's stop pretending we have anything here that people want to see or experience and divert the time, effort and resources into attracting more people to live here.  

Whatever benefits more tourists bring will be multiplied tenfold by those people living here 365 days a year and contributing to a busier and more economically viable island. 

[John Wright]

1 minute ago, AlanShimmin said:

Good point. What we are not getting is value for money - the endless millions poured into MNH, railways and other guff year after year. 

The suggestion that the expenditure is a justifiable sum as a tourist draw is deceitful, I agree. And, yes, it’s used to try justify expenditure that can’t be justified for the resident population alone.

Id rather we ditched full service on horse trams, steam, electric and mountain railways and swapped the funding to make highly subsidised public transport free for residents.

The Museum & MNH MNT is different. That’s a national, not just a local job. Preserving important Manx culture and history. But things like Peggy and £5 million is too much. It needs to go across to a specialist national museum. We can make do with a replica.

[Non-Believer]

1 hour ago, SleepyJoe said:

Tourism allows us a wider ranger of facilities - bars, restaurants, & yes museums - than we would have without it 

Tell the bars bit to Ramsey please 😂

[AlanShimmin]

7 minutes ago, John Wright said:

The suggestion that the expenditure is a justifiable sum as a tourist draw is deceitful, I agree. And, yes, it’s used to try justify expenditure that can’t be justified for the resident population alone.

Id rather we ditched full service on horse trams, steam, electric and mountain railways and swapped the funding to make highly subsidised public transport free for residents.

The Museum & MNH MNT is different. That’s a national, not just a local job. Preserving important Manx culture and history. But things like Peggy and £5 million is too much. It needs to go across to a specialist national museum. We can make do with a replica.

Agree with pretty much all of that! 

Any money being spend on 'tourism' should be opened up for bidding. Allow the private sector to pitch ideas for new and inventive attractions. 

 

[Danoo]

4 minutes ago, AlanShimmin said:

Agree with pretty much all of that! 

Any money being spend on 'tourism' should be opened up for bidding. Allow the private sector to pitch ideas for new and inventive attractions. 

 

Agreed. We can't have the responsibility for ideas to drive our tourism strategy resting with the same people who have failed to come up with anything remotely successful for the past decade or so. 

[SleepyJoe]

Try taking it away from them

[SleepyJoe]

Actually I hope Chris Thomas will take a wrecking bar to DoE after the election

[SleepyJoe]

35 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

Tell the bars bit to Ramsey please 😂

Bars are doing OK now in Peel

What is it with Ramsey?

[TheTeapot]

1 minute ago, SleepyJoe said:

What is it with Ramsey?

Well...

[quilp]

27 minutes ago, SleepyJoe said:

Actually I hope Chris Thomas will take a wrecking bar to DoE after the election

Will we have to have chapter and verse about the wrecking bar and how to tailor it for local purposes? 

[Andy Onchan]

1 hour ago, John Wright said:

Id rather we ditched full service on horse trams, steam, electric and mountain railways and swapped the funding to make highly subsidised public transport free for residents.

Agreed but the services can still continue if they are operated by interest/volunteer groups. There'd be no shortage of volunteers. Many people pay to go and work on historic transport systems, especially steam (I see no reason why MER wouldn't generate the same enthusiasm).