VisitEngland MINUTES OF THE 411th MEETING OF VISITENGLAND HELD AT 2.00PM ON THURSDAY 23 JANUARY 2014 AT VISITENGLAND, SANCTUARY BUILDIGNS, GREAT SMITH STREET, LONDON SW1P 3BT Present: Apologies: In Attendance: Penelope, Viscountess Cobham (Chairman) Sarah Dunning, OBE Amanda Cottrell, OBE Sandie Dawe, MBE Nigel Halkes John Hoy Sarah Stewart Denis Wormwell Suzanne Bond James Berresford, Chief Executive Jenny McGee, Enterprise Director David Parkhill Director, Business Services Louise Stewart, Strategy and Development Director Sharon Orrell, Head of Research and Insight for Tourism Trends and Future Trends items Tim Holt, Head of Marketing for Evolving Visitor Information Delivery and Marketing-in-Kind items Ros Carey, Secretary to the Board 1. The Chairman welcomed Sarah Dunning and Nigel Halkes to their first meeting of the Board. Minutes of the Last Meeting 2. The minutes of the meeting held on 28 November 2013 were approved and signed. Matter Arising from the Minutes 3. Following the Board s successful trip to Portsmouth it was agreed that a visit should be organised to Hull to meet with local stakeholders. 4. James Berresford reported that he had not yet received a formal response from DCMS to his proposal that they create a dual key fund to be spent by destinations. 1
Declarations of Interest 5. Amanda Cottrell and Sarah Stewart declared an interest in any discussion relating to the Regional Growth Fund project from which their organisations were benefitting. 6. Sarah Stewart also declared an interest in any discussions relating to the Rugby World Cup items as Newcastle would be a Host City. Chairman s Matters 7. The Chairman introduced her report highlighting in particular that: She had chaired the Routes Development Round Table hosted by VisitEngland and attended the Ministerial Round Table for DMOs; She had met with Kit Malthouse, the Chairman of London & Partners; She had met Sir Merrick Cockell, the Chairman of the Local Government Association; She had met with Conrad Bird, Director of the GREAT Britain campaign, to discuss the second year of the Wallace and Gromit GREAT campaign and the cross-government cycling campaign; and She had met with Dame Jenny Abramsky, Chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund to discuss the possibility if developing a partnership similar to that which VisitEngland had with Arts Council England which had led to the successful Cultural Destinations Programme. 8. Sandie Dawe reported that VisitBritain and London and Partners hoped to develop a London Plus campaign, to encourage in the US promoting theatre and culture. Chief Executive s Report 9. James Berresford thanked the Directors for their support during his recent period of sick-leave and introduced their report, highlighting in particular that: DCMS had agreed to write to all destination organisations to provide information on the agreement reached with the Commission to resolve the longrunning state-aid complaint and to ensure that they understood the impact of state aid rules on their own operations and organisations. To support this, VisitEngland would be organising a seminar to enable destination organisations to understand more fully any adjustments they might need to make to their activities to comply with state aid regulations; 2
Following a review of the Visitor Attraction Quality Assurance Scheme s management processes by VisitEngland s internal auditors, new processes have been developed to address the deficiencies identified and it was anticipated that this would lead to an improved service for participants; A review of the business support content currently held on the visitengland.org website, and of relevant third party content, had been undertaken in preparation for the delivery of the new industry facing site which showed that there was a clear role for VisitEngland to interpret business advice for the industry and to share best practice; VisitEngland and the Arts Council for England had announced the ten successful applicants which had submitted bids for the Cultural Destinations Programme funding: they would each received between 250,000 and 300,000; The Executive had met with Rugby World Cup host city destination organisations to share developments and discuss joint activity for the year ahead; VisitEngland s annual PR Workshop and Meet the Media event, had been attended by 50 destinations and partners and over 80 journalists. Feedback following the event had revealed that the PR Workshop had exceeded the expectations of 70% of the destinations with over 60% reporting that the Meet the Media event had been above or far above expectations; and A key priority had been to recruit English Destinations for the Regional Growth Fund thematic campaigns and that around fifty destinations had now signed up to over seventy campaigns leading to a match-funding investment of 500,000. Significant time and resource was needed to manage communications between such a large number of partners. Work also continued to engage commercial partners for the cycling campaign. Performance and Progress 2013/14 10. Louise Stewart introduced her report. 11. The Board noted that that good progress had been made overall as at 31 December 2013 towards meeting the Business Plan targets. The only notable exception was that the advertising equivalent value of domestic media coverage generated by the PR team was likely to fall significantly short of the target of 80 million and, in retrospect, the Executive felt that the target had been overambitious. 12. Louise Stewart then responded to questions from Board Members. 3
Tourism Trends 13. Sharon Orrell joined the meeting and introduced her paper which provided a briefing on the latest survey results for England and on market conditions. She reported that recent consumer research showed that there was a degree of pent up demand for overseas travel when their financial circumstances permitted. 14. Board Members then exchanged feedback on the state of the market. Future Trends in Domestic Tourism 15. Sharon Orrell then gave an interesting and informative presentation on the value of tourism in England, inbound tourism trends and future trends. 16. In the inbound market, leisure travel had continued to grow, with overall trip-taking likely to revert to pre-recession levels in 2013. 17. Sharon Orrell then turned to the main focus of the presentation which was to present the findings from a project which had looked at trends in the domestic leisure market over the forthcoming decade: the work had been published under the title Domestic Leisure Tourism rends for the Next Decade and copies were tabled. 18. The aim had been to identify the trends, influences and behaviours which were likely to impact on domestic tourism during the future decade; explore the extent to which changes in recent years were a short-term response to the economic environment rather than a permanent shift; and to understand the implications of the emerging trends for different sectors, destinations and businesses in the industry. 19. Sharon Orrell then outlined the key implications arising from the research before responding to Board Members questions. 20. Sharon Orrell then left the meeting. Business Services Review 21. David Parkhill introduced his paper which updated the Board on progress in reviewing the options which had been identified for reducing further back-office costs in the mid- term. 22. One of the options identified had been to move business IT systems to the Cloud. David Parkhill reported that it was hoped to move those systems which were cloud ready during the forthcoming financial year. This partial move was not expected to yield significant cost savings but would provide a better service to overseas staff and improve VisitEngland and VisitBritain s disaster recovery capability. 4
Separation Progress Report and Resolutions 23. David Parkhill introduced his paper. He reported that the Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport had now written to the Cabinet Office requesting approval to resume direct funding to the English Tourist Board. 24. David Parkhill further reported that the Cabinet Office had proposed that the triennial reviews of VisitEngland and VisitBritain should be expedited and specifically examine the case for separation. In response, the Secretary of State had re-stated her position that the reviews should only take place after separation. 25. In order that the Executive might be in a position to act swiftly if final approval to re-introduce direct funding was received at short notice, the Board then passed the following Resolutions: i) That, subject to receipt of a Direction from the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport ordering it so to do, to accept on 1 April 2014 or such other date as DCMS might direct, the transfer of the net assets and undertaking of British Tourist Authority trading as VisitEngland (including staff) as at midnight on 31 March 2014 or midnight on the day preceding such other date directed by the Secretary of State and to give effect to this decision by entering into a Transfer Agreement in a form approved by the Chief Executive; ii) iii) On commencement of direct funding to the English Tourist Board and subject to the approval of the Trustees to re-join the British Tourist Boards Staff Pension Scheme; and To adopt VisitEngland as the trading name of the English Tourist Board. National Quality Assurance Schemes: Towards an Enterprise Approach 26. Jenny McGee introduced her paper which reported on progress in determining the preferred future operating model for the National Quality Assurance Schemes following the expiry of the Licence in favour of the current operator on 31 March 2015. 27. Jenny McGee reported that the project was on course and that research was currently being undertaken which would inform the Executive s recommendation on the future operating model. Evolving Visitor Information Delivery 28. Tim Holt joined the meeting and introduced Alex Mawer s paper which briefed the Board on a pilot project which would be launched shortly by VisitEngland to demonstrate how Tourist/Visitor Information Centres could utilise Twitter to provide real-time information to visitors, businesses and local communities. 5
29. Tom Holt explained that VisitEngland would promote the Twitter user-names in campaigns and on its website as appropriate. Sandie Dawe noted the importance of destinations also providing the information prominently at local level. Recording and Measuring In-Kind Contributions to VisitEngland 30. David Parkhill introduced his paper which briefed the Board on the sources of marketing-in-kind, how it was being recorded and measured and on the governance arrangements. A Scrutiny Committee, which included an independent member and an observer from DCMS, met quarterly, a monthly management meeting was held to review progress and monitor compliance and the Audit Committee kept the work under regular review. 31. David Parkhill then responded to questions during which he confirmed that the arrangements he had described applied to VisitEngland as well as to VisitBritain. 32. Tim Holt left the meeting. Regional Growth Fund 33. Louise Stewart introduced her paper which updated the Board on progress on the RGF project: Growing Tourism Locally. 34. Louise Stewart reported that, due to the extent to which campaign activities had been cancelled or postponed pending receipt of the delayed grant payments, DBIS had now agreed to the virement of 2.77 million of the 2013/14 RGF funding allocation to the next financial year: this represented 1.29 million and 1.48 million on the Primary Destination and Thematic Marketing Activity Strands respectively. Secretariat Items 35. The Board noted the programme of future Board meeting dates for 2014 and VisitEngland s Events Calendar. Any Other Business 36. The Chairman noted that this had been David Parkhill s last meeting as he was leaving to take up a new position. She paid tribute to the support and advice which David had given to her and the Executive team and Members joined her in wishing him well in the future. Date of Next Meeting 37. 20 March 2014. 6