VisitArran Achievements 2007/8
A Summary of the work carried out in 2007/8
VisitArran Business Achievements in 2007/8
Introduction:
Visit Arran’s goal is to promote growth in sustainable tourism on Arran. The task of the businesses within the tourism sector is to continue to invest in the quantity and quality of the Islands accommodation, attractions and activities. The task of Visit Arran is to initiate specific activity to drive growth and support individual and group efforts to achieve more than the sum of the parts. Visit Arran`s provides leadership for the tourist sector and as such contributes and shares in its successes and failures.
We have outlined below VA`s accomplishments over 2007/8. The accomplishments are organised using the categories identified in the Business Plan. However, if we had executed our plan perfectly and tourism declined, we would have failed in our primary objective. Therefore, overall performance, as measured by revenue growth, remains our primary metric.
Overall Performance:
Revenue from tourism in Scotland grew at 0.5% in 2007. Revenue growth from tourism on Arran grew at 8% in 2007. We regard this growth as a primary indicator of the health of the sector in 2007 and a primary indicators of Visit Arran and The Islands success. Visit Arran shares this metric with all participants and supporters of tourism on The Island. Organisation:
Went after and attracted high calibre national events to promote Arran within the UK.
Antony Nolan Trust – National Fundraising Activity
Weekend Adventure Media Challenge – won national competitive bid to host this high profile PR weekend.
Two open meetings with participating businesses and potential participating businesses to explain progress in general and Marketing Campaign in particular. The objective was to encouraged support and feedback.
Two Tourism Advisory Council meetings to outline plans and initiate consultation.
Four new Directors appointed to widen the participation and experience within the BOD.
Two Directors representing smaller tourist business which were demonstrating growth in different sectors.
One Director representing the farming, access and environmental sides of the Arran community.
The Chairman of Arran’s Community Council to ensure that Visit Arran had an integrated plan that connecting the Tourism sector with the wider community.
Increased participating business from 34 to 62 demonstrating acceptance and support within the wider business community.
Raised £30k private sector funding and £10k in kind support underlining support with cash and work.
Created an Events sub group and facilitated the inception of and Island Wide Environment Panel to review and recommend programmes to improve both.
Tourism Development Plan completed and used as the basis for the 2008/2009 Business Plan.
Measurement and Control:
8% growth in revenue from Tourism in 2007.
Produced certified accounts for 2006/2007.
Established/acquired Baseline Numbers and trends by segment for The Island.
Agreed 3 year contract for continual progress update by segment.
Developed a comprehensive Business Plan detailing how Visit Arran could support an £8.0M increase in revenue from tourism over the next three years. The Business Plan represents a major contribution by the VA Board in thought, time and effort in 2007 and is the basis for future activity and measurement.
Improvements in Service Offerings and Delivery:
Established/acquired Baseline Quality levels by segment for The Island, Region and Scotland.
Start process to implement quality targets and provide best practice guidelines for VA members.
Support Arran Wildlife Festival which generated an estimated 1100 extra bed nights for the Island.
Co-ordinating funding and support for the Arran Outdoor Festival.
Infrastructure:
Visit Arran has supported the work outlined below:
Discussion started with all relevant groups to provide a unified approach to interpretation around the Island.
Work started to identify core paths in consultation with the Public and NAC. Possible Village Link, Coastal Way and high tops routes are being identified for creation and or upgrade. Potential large scale funding stream identified.
Work started with FCS who plan to open the Southend Forest, creating more recreation areas for walking, cycling and horse riding. Marketing:
In conjunction with Visit Scotland created, tested and launched Arran The Island brand in May.
Support Wildlife & Outdoor festivals to attract PR
PR articles in connection with: The Brand, National Events, Local Events, Short Break Campaign.
Magazines 12.
Newspapers 43.
Web 20.
Radio 1.
TV 1.
Continued Consultation and joint initiatives with CalMac . Visit Arran provides 60hrs/week information desk support on the CalMac Ferry, Spring through Autumn.
Introduction of The Arran Discovery pass with 25 Island Business providing discounts or incremental services. This encourages visitors into all aspects of what the Island has to offer and encourages visitor dispersal throughout the island. It is effectively distributed through the Ferry Desk.
Short Break Campaign had three primary objectives:
1) Create awareness of the Arran as destination with all it has to offer.It is recognised within the industry that the campaign greatly increased awareness of Arran as a destination.
2) Increased visitors during the shoulder months.Mixed results on this objective. We could not use Visit Scotland.com to take booking and devised our own process. It is likely that we did not capture all the accommodation interest through this process and as such, there were only marginal increases in demand for accommodation. However, two of our major attractions identified between a 2 and 8% increase in revenue during the period of the campaign.
3) Help to inform and retain previous visitors to Arran.It is too early to assess the impact on this year’s results. However, several members have commented that forward bookings were up on last year. As these bookings are for a period that has 90% occupancy it will not increase overall revenue for the year. However, it did secure bookings early in a difficult economic climate which has been an advantage.
Website and Extranet sites developed:
Increase of 100% in visitor hits from January to July 2008. Now standing at over 4500 per month.
We are achieving first page ratings on major search engines using our defined key words.
As a comparison with similar sized holiday destination websites the Visit Arran site is;
+42% page views & +44% time on site above bench mark +11% new visits above benchmark.
Summary/Conclusion:
Visit Arran have made considerable progress in Overall Performance, Organisation, Measurement and Control, Service Offerings and Delivery, Infrastructure and Marketing and we have achieved all of the above with part time professional support and significant voluntary help from Board members and the wider community. We have taken the DMO model as far as we can with this support infrastructure. To move on and implement our Business Plan we need to move to a full time professional organisation. The organisation, the funding and the implementation of the Business Plan will be the work for 2008/9.