The strategy to attract 500,000 visitors!

[cissolt]

24 minutes ago, Holte End said:

In this piece of fiction.

"Along with its headline target of growing annual visitor numbers to 500,000, with a subsequent economic contribution of £520m, by 2032, the Visit Agency is also aiming to increase the average spend per visitor, driven by strong growth in a longer staying and high spending leisure market. It predicts this should result in a more than doubling of annual visitor spending on the Island to £310m, which will support an increase in visitor economy jobs to 5,000 and generate an annual exchequer benefit of £49m".

I have only one question, who contributes the other £210m, I am guessing the Great Manx Taxpayer. It is appropriately titled " Our Targets"

 

 

Of course we are footing the bill for this pipedream. I am struggling to find the formula used to come up with the figure, there must be a they choose not to include it

[Holte End]

1 hour ago, cissolt said:

Of course we are footing the bill for this pipedream. I am struggling to find the formula used to come up with the figure, there must be a they choose not to include it

The Royal Society of Chemistry equation for the perfect bullshit marketing equation.

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Holte End

[SleepyJoe]

4 hours ago, Holte End said:

In this piece of fiction.

"Along with its headline target of growing annual visitor numbers to 500,000, with a subsequent economic contribution of £520m, by 2032, the Visit Agency is also aiming to increase the average spend per visitor, driven by strong growth in a longer staying and high spending leisure market. It predicts this should result in a more than doubling of annual visitor spending on the Island to £310m, which will support an increase in visitor economy jobs to 5,000 and generate an annual exchequer benefit of £49m".

I have only one question, who contributes the other £210m, I am guessing the Great Manx Taxpayer. It is appropriately titled " Our Targets"

 

 

It is an utter fiction, which is apparently to be achieved through a policy of 'sustainable tourism' 

[Ringy Rose]

Of course it is pie-in-the-sky, but it's worth pointing out Bowness on Winderemere gets 1m tourists a year going to look at a hill and a lake. And Bowness on Windermere is a complete shithole.

 

[Max Power]

11 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

Of course it is pie-in-the-sky, but it's worth pointing out Bowness on Winderemere gets 1m tourists a year going to look at a hill and a lake. And Bowness on Windermere is a complete shithole.

 

Very true, but you can drive there and back in a day.

[2112]

18 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

Of course it is pie-in-the-sky, but it's worth pointing out Bowness on Winderemere gets 1m tourists a year going to look at a hill and a lake. And Bowness on Windermere is a complete shithole.

 

Well Douglas is a complete shithole and the IOM is dreaming of 500k+ tourists yearly 😂. The conmen of DfE, spivs and oilskin salesmen. 

[2112]

23 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

Of course it is pie-in-the-sky, but it's worth pointing out Bowness on Winderemere gets 1m tourists a year going to look at a hill and a lake. And Bowness on Windermere is a complete shithole.

 

Bowness maybe a complete shithole to you but it’s wonderful to others, and people with taste. Douglas is s derelict cesspit of filth, decay and car parks. The Sea Terminal is past it’s sell by date, and is in dire need of a lick of paint and modernising. The airport is depressing, dirty, tired and again neglected, like the rest of the island. At least if you don’t like Bowness you can visit other areas of outstanding natural beauty. What can you do on the Rock? While off the hours and days till you can depart back to Heysham or Liverpool. 

[Ringy Rose]

1 hour ago, 2112 said:

Bowness maybe a complete shithole to you but it’s wonderful to others, and people with taste.

Bowness is a craphole. Other bits of the south Lakes are really very lovely, but Bowness is horrid, and Bowness specifically gets 1m visitors a year.

As for transport, who cares what a transport link looks like, you're barely in it. After all, there's one railway station in the whole of the Lake District, Windermere, and that station consists of a single platform and a bus shelter.

1 hour ago, 2112 said:

Douglas is s derelict cesspit of filth, decay and car parks.

I was in Leeds at the weekend. If you think Douglas is derelict you don't get out much.

 

1 hour ago, Max Power said:

Very true, but you can drive there and back in a day.

True, but a decent chunk of those visitors are not daytrippers.

It also depends where you're travelling from. From the North West or North East its a day trip, from London less so. And if you don't drive, a train ride from Euston will set you back as much as an EasyJet from Gatwick.

500,000 visitors a year is "optimistic", shall we say, but done properly its not outlandishly so. Of course "done properly" is the difficult bit.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Ringy Rose

[Ringy Rose]

57 minutes ago, 2112 said:

What can you do on the Rock?

Pretty much everything you can do in the Lake District: walk up a hill, walk by some water, ride on a steam train, look at some pretty hills, ride a Segway around a forest, drink a shitload of coffee. The three single biggest tourist attractions in the Lake District are an old house, a steam train and a steam boat.

I used to live in the Lake District National Park, in the northern bit above Keswick, and there's really nothing there that isn't also here. Catbells is a lovely walk, but so is Snaefell or South Barrule.

The Lake District is obviously easier to get to as you don't need to fly or take a ferry, and that's equally obviously going to have a huge impact on visitor numbers here. But goodness me, this is a lovely place to live and promoted properly its a lovely place to tourist.

[cissolt]

1 hour ago, Max Power said:

Very true, but you can drive there and back in a day.

And it won't cost £500+ for a family weekend.

Even making transport to and from the island free wouldn't increase the numbers to the levels suggested.

[Boris Johnson]

This crap is nothing more than a reason to continue employing umpteen CS on good money to hold meetings about this crap and report to their minister about it.

I have got more chance of growing a fanny than they have of getting 500k visitors.

How can Allison not see this?

He did not come across as an imbicile when he was a Dr.

This kind of crap really makes me mad, I pay taxes that should go to proper worthwhile causes and essential services, not just to continue CS employment and CS empire building, which is all this is.

If they had come out with a reasonable target of new visitors to attract, say 75k more than present by 2030 then fair enough but to come out with this shit is just stupid. 

We may as well declare that by 2035 we will have built a two way road tunnel to Australia to supply fresh bread.

[Non-Believer]

The baseline starting point of visitor numbers of 300k-odd back in 2019 is a good place to start with the debunking. This will have been compiled back in Skelly's DfE days and doubtless includes people or workmen off the Promenade popping into the Sea Terminal toilets for a pee.

It's dreamland stuff along with the Fairy House figures for publicity. I expected better of Allinson than to be led by the nose like this.

[Manx Bean]

Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey!! Calister, No! STOP. NOW. Please!!

I really can't take any more of the this pretending we are a top visitor destination bullshit. Its's akin to the 3rd most likely place to launch a spacecraft nonsense.

This government needs to stop churning out "schemes" and shiny new ideas that hardly anyone wants. For heavens sake, what is wrong with having say at least one whole administration where all that we focus on is getting the basics right, getting our house in order and giving some stability to the taxpayer. No wanky capital schemes, no wasting money of pathetic active travel bollocks - just good old fashioned getting things sorted. PLEASE! FFS!

[asitis]

We need to divest ourselves of politicians who spout the " well the money spent on (some pie in the sky scheme), returned 1 million pounds in advertising for the island". This was a bit like Eddie and his bed nights for the film industry which was absolute horseshit !

Daphne is the latest one to laud the fairy houses, sweet jesus and the orphans, the only person doing remarkably well out of those is whoever produced the models and persuaded us to spend  such a huge amount of money on them !

We need politicians who given a briefing note to deliver to the press and taxpayers looks at it and says, "There is no way I'm making myself look an idiot spouting that" !

We can't pay bills with projected costs of advertising ! 

 

 

[joebean]

Rob Callister’s interview on MR was very typical. All upbeat stuff about being proactive etc, then he gets asked a question about specific actions and the waffling starts. Apparently, the Government had a scheme to support accommodation upgrades ready to go in 2019 but that was put on hold “due to Covid-19” (why?) and they will need to “look at it again”. So, the strategy is launched but without supporting schemes in place. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a strategy launch with all the bits that will help it be delivered in place and a politician or official who can come to the media and explain it all? This would help the public, accommodation providers and the industry believe that the targets were deliverable, rather than get the usual 🙄