PAPER D

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PLANNING, TOURISM AND LEISURE SERVICES SELECT COMMITTEE – 8 JANUARY 2004

PARTNERSHIP ARRANGEMENTS WITH TOURISM SOUTH EAST

REPORT OF HEAD OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND TOURISM

REASON FOR SELECT COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION

Members agreed to receive a report on this matter at a previous meeting of the Committee.

ACTION REQUIRED BY THE SELECT COMMITTEE

That Members note the progress made in this matter.

BACKGROUND

Members will be aware that in April of this year the Southern and South East Tourist Boards were merged to form a new board, the Southern & South East Tourist Board which trades as Tourist South East (TSE).

In keeping with similar reorganisations of other Government quangos TSE’s boundary is the same as that of the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), and it has chosen to operate sub regional administrative arrangements. However unlike the reorganisation of other such quangos TSE has identified the Isle of Wight alone to be one of its six sub regions. In TSE’s view the Island being both a brand and destination in the mind’s of the travelling public.

TSE has been looking to develop these sub committees to oversee the development of tourism in each of its defined regions. Its approach to this has been to work in partnership with the local authorities and the industry in each area to establish how the Committees would be structured and the role of the partners in its performance.

On the Isle of Wight an interim sub committee was established comprising representatives of the industry (drawn from ITIA and TSE membership), the Council and TSE directors. This committee has met on two occasions. The second of these meetings was on 21 November 2003 whereupon the shape and structure of the permanent committee was agreed for recommendation to the board of TSE.

The structure of the Committee is shown in Annex 1. This was accepted by the TSE Board on 4 December 2003 and its first meeting is to be held on 9 February 2004.

TSE have suggested that one of the first priorities of the new committee will be to build a sub regional Isle of Wight dimension to the forthcoming Regional Tourism Strategy. Of more importance however will be for it to determine its overall role in the management of tourism on the Isle of Wight. It will also be important to determine what each of the partners can/will bring to the table in helping it to deliver that role. It could be considered a weakness that this was not part of the interim sub committee’s deliberations, and that form has come before purpose. As yet none of the partners have made any firm commitments to the permanent committees operations other than to nominate representatives to it.

Attached at Annex 2 is a paper which was considered by the Tourism Partnership which seeks to clarify the roles of the Council and the Industry in the management of tourism on the Island. This was generally accepted by the Partnership and is intended to be tabled as a discussion document to the first meeting of the permanent committee. The views of today’s meeting are also important to finalising that document before its submission.

RELEVANT PLANS, POLICIES, STRATEGIES AND PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Tourism is estimated to be worth £312 million to the Island’s economy and to support 1 in 3 jobs (directly and indirectly).

In March 2002 Council debated the strategic importance of tourism to the Island and recognised that tourism was the “Island’s major industry” and is the future key to prosperity.

Developing Tourism is one of the seven themes of the Community Strategy, to be achieved through, in the main, the development of a tourism development plan.

Tourism is encapsulated in the Council’s Corporate Plan Objective of “encouraging Job creation and economic prosperity”. This identifies that the industry has great potential to expand on the Island and that the Council seeks to work with partners to “support development of the Island as one of the UK’s leading tourist and leisure destinations”.

The recently produced draft Island Cultural Strategy recognised the importance of the links between cultural services and tourism. One of its six themes relates to the development of all-year round tourism and part of its overall aim is to use cultural services to “assist” in underpinning the Island’s tourism industry”.

CONSULTATION PROCESS

The Island’s tourist industry through the members of the Island Tourist Industry Association (ITIA) and also TSE, have been consulted by TSE on the formation of the sub regional Committee.

FINANCIAL, LEGAL, CRIME AND DISORDER IMPLICATIONS

None arising from this report.

ANNEXES ATTACHED

Annex 1 : Composition of the Sub Regional Committee.

Annex 2 : Roles in Tourism on the Isle of Wight.

Contact Point : John Metcalfe,  Tel: 823842, email: [email protected]

JOHN METCALFE

Head of Community Development and Tourism

Annex 1

ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE PERMANENT COMMITTEE

· The representatives of the Permanent Committee to comprise 6 tourism industry, 2 transport, 3 council, 1 Isle of Wight Economic Partnership Director, 1 TSE Director.

· It will be for the industry to choose, by open election, the 6 tourism industry representatives.

· Industry representation will not be restricted to membership organisations.

· Co-options should be for the discretion of the Permanent Committee to provide flexibility (ie if a key sector is missing).

· A first ‘past the post’ method of selecting industry representatives was agreed (although Chris Thie registered his objection to this method).

· The permanent Committee should make arrangements for the rotation and replacement of elected representatives.

· The Committee will review the circumstances of absenteeism by members of the Committee if two consequent meetings are missed.

· To select a Chairman, all 13 members of the Committee will be asked to put their names forward. TSE will organise an election process if there is more than one and the process and result will be ratified by the Committee.

· The Permanent Committee will decide whether the Chairman or another member should become the TSE Board Director.

· The maximum term of office for the Chair and Vice Chair should be 6 years.

· Timetable for Permanent Committee agreed as follows:

Nominations – early January 2004.

Elections – mid January 2004.

Permanent Committee Meeting – 9 February 2004.