Tourism, Leisure & Culture SAT budget: £105,000 (£70k revenue, £35k capital)

 

Tourism, Leisure & Culture SAT’s strategy in its first year was to invest its limited budget in improving the organisational infrastructure of the tourism sector – and in practice that has meant investing in projects to help Experience Nottingham (now Experience Nottinghamshire) offer better and more co-ordinated services to the sector.

 

 

In 2003/04 Experience Nottingham was formed from the merger of Profile Nottingham and Conference Nottingham, with Dr John Heeley appointed as new Chief Executive in July.

 

GNP gave £10k towards new IT/telecomms kit to help with the successful merging of the 2 organisations, plus £20k for the first stage of developing a new brand for Nottingham.

 

Purple Circle, based in Nottingham, were awarded the contract to undertake the initial consultation and scoping of brand ideas.

 

 

A Destination Management System (DMS) is an integrated computer system that uses information stored in a large database and adds functionality such as online bookings.

 

For tourism businesses, this means that business information and sales can be managed online. For the holidaymaker or visitor, this creates a virtual ‘one stop shop’, where accommodation, attractions, tickets, merchandise, etc across the county can be purchased.

 

Nottinghamshire’s DMS is being purchased from Marketing Birmingham Ltd and is presently under development using market leading software from WorldNet.

 

The GNP gave £60k towards the development of this £700k+ project in 2003/04 and will continue to support its development over the next two years. Other funding came from the Alliance SSP, European Regional Development Fund, and various local authorities including the City and County Councils.

 

Experience Nottinghamshire have recently appointed Richard Worrall to manage the development and implementation of the system. 

 

Business tourism is the sector of the economy with most potential to generate increased income for the conurbation.

 

Experience Nottinghamshire commissioned Locum Destination Consulting to examine Nottingham’s current conference offer and recommend ways of improving our performance in attracting conferences and trade exhibitions to the city.

 

Experience Nottinghamshire are now taking this forward in their current business plan. They have already begun to capitalise on the business tourism market, attracting the Second National Conference on Business Tourism to the city in November.

 

Delegates will include representatives of regional development agencies, tourist boards, destination and venue executives, national, regional and local government, destination management organisations, conference organisers and intermediaries and suppliers, so the conference represents a major opportunity to showcase the city.

 

GNP contributed £15k to the costs of the study.