Destination Management Plan

During 2023, the Visit West team have been working with Blue Sail and partners to develop the first Destination Management Plan (DMP) for the region, covering Bristol, Bath & North East Somerset, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset.

The DMP identifies the shared themes and market opportunities that the entire region can exploit, adding to, rather than replacing, the current markets and propositions prioritised by each of the areas individually. The Plan is built on a detailed market and trend analysis, consideration of the strategic local, regional and national priorities, and input from more than 100 consultees from across the area.

Pre-pandemic, the region’s visitor economy was worth £2.33 billion to the region, and in 2022 recovered its value to £2 billion, with 80% of the total staying visits of 2019, and 91% of the spend. Day visits were also estimated to be 80% of the total of 2019, with spend at 90%.

The purpose of the plan is to help create and sustain the visitor economy in a way that benefits the whole region, ensuring inclusive economic growth that must be sustainable and responsible.

The whole plan is available to download here, but a summary of some key points are below.

Sustainability

Sustainability is not an afterthought but is the default position for everything that happens as a consequence of this Plan.

Sustainability is complex, balancing a range of factors – economic, social and environmental. Each of these aspects are woven through the DMP and fundamental to the strategic approach. By focusing specifically on generating longer stays and resulting greater spend targeting markets with growth potential, this DMP aims to be economically sustainable. By encouraging exploration it aims to spread the benefits to communities across the area supporting facilities and businesses, and creating local jobs. By focusing on longer stays then the carbon impact per visit is reduced.

While the impact on the environment must be continually considered in the delivery of the DMP there are a number of specific areas of focus:

• Business - supporting businesses in reducing impacts
• Visitor - helping visitors make good choices
• Destination – good practice in developing and managing the destination.

Markets

Using data from the UK and Ireland, to help achieve our objective of driving longer stays that take in more of the area, our target market is Eclectic Vibers.

These are younger (under 40), independent travellers, typically travelling without children and can be either domestic or international. Motivated by broadening their minds, they seek new experiences, looking for opportunities to socialise and explore like a local, with wellness and self care being an important part of their travel.

This does not mean that we will stop looking to other audiences, such as families at key travel times, but our proactive focus will be on the development of products and itineraries for Eclectic Vibers.

This visitor market creates an opportunity not to be so geographically specific, enabling a quick response to new flight routes, and new in market opportunities. Our international priorities will continue to be USA and Europe (particularly France, Spain, and Germany) as well as direct connections. We will also explore opportunities for developing programmes for Australia, Canada, India, and China.

We will also be looking at two further growth markets:

Growth themes

The focus of the DMP is on three themes with growth potential for the whole Visit West area: 

New Culture

Embracing a range of creative endeavours found across the area, including street art , film and TV, fashion stories and shopping experiences. It includes music and performance, events, arts and crafts. It includes sport – spectating and participating. And the new food and drink offer - locally produced and delivered by creative young chefs, particularly in the urban areas.

Heritage Reinterpreted

‘Heritage Reinterpreted’ acknowledges the range and depth of the area’s history and heritage and takes a forward-looking perspective to examine new ways that this can be experienced. This includes new and under-represented stories told in imaginative new ways whether at attractions, on tours, by local communities, on the ground and in marketing communications.

Wellbeing

‘Wellbeing’ taps into the increasing interest in physical and mental health and self-care. It takes Bath’s natural hot thermal waters as a starting point and extends it to include the green and blue spaces of the area. It includes the range of activities from gentle to challenging, and simply being as well as doing. It includes healthy living expressed in food and drink, locally produced and prepared.

The region is not short of outstanding assets – iconic names and attractions, urban, rural, activities, culture and history. This DMP does not override these but rather identifies the above three themes that will appeal to the target market of Eclectic Vibers, encourage exploration and discovery and so have growth potential across the whole region no matter what point a visitor ‘enters.' 

While elements of each can be dialled up or down as appropriate within destination marketing or by individual businesses or providers, it is in combination that the themes create a mutually beneficial proposition which differentiates the Visit West area, based on the assets and current strengths of the whole area, projects and developments which are in the pipeline and respond to market trends. 

Strengthening the Foundations

A flourishing tourism sector meeting the needs of visitors must pay attention to the fundamentals.

Five specific areas are prioritised for action within the DMP:

• Accommodation
• Jobs & Skills
• Business Support
• Quality Standards
• Accessibility