Agenda item

Presentation by Jennifer Spencer, Chief Executive, Experience Nottinghamshire

Jennifer Spencer, Experience Nottinghamshire, presented the Forum with the following information on visitor economy opportunities for the City:

(a)  the sector is the UK’s third largest employer, accounting for 9.6% of total employment (3.1 million people);

(b)  tourism is the fastest growing sector in the UK in employment terms, responsible for almost one third of the net increase in UK jobs between 2010 and 2013;

(c)  there are 249,000 tourism businesses in the UK and they account for 9.8% of all business in the UK;

(d)  the Scarborough Tourism Economic Assessment Model (STEAM) shows the following changes in the visitor economy in Nottingham:

(e)  there was a £1.44b spend in Nottinghamshire in 2011 divided between shopping, food and drink, recreation, transport and accommodation;

(f)  the Colliers report, a visitor economy review and investment study, was carried out in May 2014 to assess what the City currently has and what it needs. It was a D2N2 funded project managed by the Visitor Economy Advisory Group and includes a summary of volume and the value of visitor economy, a summary of planned developments and a summary of priorities;

(g)  the priorities identified in the Colliers report are:

·  a Robin Hood themed attraction. The Sherwood Forest and Castle projects will help towards this;

·  to expand the role and sustainability of the conference and events bidding team. This will help to attract more events to the City and boost the economy;

·  having a dedicated convention centre. Evaluation needs to be carried out on the feasibility of this but the City currently struggles to hold events for 600+ delegates as there are no venues that are large enough;

·  industrial heritage and local distinctiveness themes;

(h)  secondary priorities include:

·  to support the actions identified in the City Centre Time and Place Plan and Retail Strategy;

·  tourist bus tours;

·  market towns and destination hubs;

·  food and drink festivals;

·  a review of the skills audit/small medium enterprise programme;

(i)  Experience Nottinghamshire now has over 450 members and this is increasing on a daily basis. 44% of members are within the City boundary. A membership survey was recently carried out with positive results;

(j)  evaluation of Year 1 of the One day in Notts is never enough campaign shows:

Level of incremental visitor expenditure

Total campaign  £4.8m

Regional Growth Fund funds  £3.1m

Jobs created or supported (£52,773 – 1 job)

Year 1

Total campaign  91 jobs

Regional Growth Fund funds  60 jobs

Year 3

Regional Growth Fund target  136 jobs

(k)  year 2 Regional Growth Fund primary campaign for 2014 includes:

·  in Notts we love to celebrate our legend;

·  in Notts we love dance;

·  in Notts we love to pedal faster;

·  in Notts we love a tasty brew;

(l)  year 2 results to date so far show there have been 3,000 competition entries, 280,192 unique web visits and a 22% increase on 2013/14.

During discussion the Forum and others in attendance made the following comments:

(m)  work is being done with Invest in Nottingham regarding graduation ceremonies and other events as parents of students are frequent visitors to the City;

(n)  the universities work closely with partners to ensure there is a programme of events for foreign students;

(o)  cycling is an attraction for visitors as well as residents;

(p)  improvements are being made to the river so a river attraction could be a possibility for the future;

(q)  the expansion of the tram network will help connect exhibitions, etc across the City so will help people plan their weekend itinerary when they are visiting;

(r)  the priorities are major projects and will need to be prioritised dependent on their impact on the visitor economy;

(s)   the possibility of a convention centre needs thorough investigation but it would attract business to the City if we had one and would boost hotel stays and prices mid week.

RESOLVED to thank Jennifer for her presentation and note the information.