Minutes:
The Committee considered the undernoted report, together with a draft Business Plan for 2014/2015, a copy of which had been published on the Council’s Mod.gov website:
“1 Background Information
1.1 Members are aware that Visit Belfast submit their Business Plan annually to Development Committee for approval. The plan covers the leisure marketing and business tourism activity undertaken by Visit Belfast, visitor servicing carried out by Belfast Welcome Centre in the city centre and at the two airports. This occurs to ensure that budgets and activity are in place by April to allow Visit Belfast to deliver activity in the new financial year.
1.2 The draft Visit Belfast Business Plan is a one year operational marketing and visitor servicing plan. This is set against the context of a strategic review of Tourism within the City being led by Belfast City Council in partnership with the NITB. This review has commenced and is due for completion early in May. The review will examine all aspects of tourism activity and will heavily influence future activity undertaken by a number of key delivery agents within the City including Visit Belfast.
1.3 Some specific examples of success to date include securing 60 cruise ships for 2014, generating £5.7m spend by leisure visitors through activity in the GB marketplace, securing conferences worth £37.7 million for the city and dealing with 534,515 enquiries via the 3 TICs. Areas under-performing include advertising equivalent from PR due to the lag time between press visits and coverage (therefore likely to reach targets by year end); and value of accommodation booking fees from conferences - delegates tend to negotiate better rates directly with hotels as there is no commission. Overall however Visit Belfast’s performance has remained on target for 2013/14 period.
1.4 The plan proposes targets and KPI’s for 2014/15 on page 11. Key initiatives for 2014/15 include enhanced digital activity and adding value and focus on periods of low occupancy and the off season. In summary, through implementing this Business Plan, Visit Belfast will aim to generate £64.3 million spend in the local economy. The overall budget is £3.56 million of which £1,827,465 is requested from Council.
1.5 The 2014/15 Business Plan has been developed with input from Council officers. It is envisaged that there will be some degree of flexibility within the Visit Belfast Business plan to adopt some of the findings within the Tourism Strategy in the 2014-15 financial year.
2 Key Issues
2.1 The Tourism Strategy which is due for completion early in May will provide a long term vision, strategy and associated action plans for the future of tourism in Belfast. This strategy will look at all aspects of tourism activity including delivery mechanisms to ensure value for money and the delivery of best practise.
2.2 In the incoming 2014/15 year the principles of the new strategy will start to be embedded by partners across the City both public and private sector. Officers have discussed with Visit Belfast the need for some flexibility in terms of adopting some of these concepts in the incoming year.
2.3 Part of the tourism strategy will look in-depth at monitoring and research, looking to European best practise models to provide accurate data in a timelier manner. This is fundamental in the long term business planning of tourism in the City.
2.4 NITB remains a key partner in the development of the new Tourism Strategy. The steering group for the strategy however also includes DETI, Visit Belfast and Tourism Ireland as well as senior staff in NITB and BCC.
3 Resource Implications
3.1BVCB is requesting £1,827,465 towards 2014/15 plan. This has been included in departmental estimates.”
The Chairman, on behalf of the Committee, welcomed Mr. G. Lennon, Chief Executive, and Mr. D. Gavaghan, Chairman, representing Visit Belfast.
Mr. Lennon provided an overview of the work which Visit Belfast had undertaken during 2013 and outlined the principal aspects of the business plan which had been formulated for 2014/2015. In response to a question in respect of the new Welcome Centre in Donegall Square North, he indicated that, since it had been opened in December, 2013, retail sales had increased by 15%, while visitor numbers had risen by 8.5%, when compared to the same period in 2012. Mr. Lennon and Mr. Gavaghan outlined also the alternative funding arrangements which Visit Belfast would consider in future years which would place a greater emphasis on the private sector to contribute to the work of the organisation.
After discussion, the Committee agreed to provide the sum of £1,827,465 to Visit Belfast for the 2014/2015 financial year and endorsed the contents of its Business Plan for that period.