Membership Overview
Tourism South East has over 2000 members and our strategic alliance includes local authorities and tourism businesses across the region - all working together to achieve the shared goal of a thriving tourism industry in the South East. Together we can be stronger and achieve more, we would love to hear from you and welcome you into our partnership, and the bottom line is it will save you money too!
As a member, you are also helping fund the work Tourism South East undertakes to promote the region and support the industry. Joining Tourism South East offers tourism businesses a wide range of benefits - from delivering cost savings, essential advice and support, and bottom line benefits to providing new marketing and promotional opportunities in the UK and overseas.
Joining Tourism South East provides local authorities with a carefully tailored range of support services to meet your needs. The partnership offers you access to specialist professionals to ensure limited public funding can bring maximum benefits for investment in this vibrant, growing and increasingly important sector.
A look back at 2010
Helping your business attract more business
In this key area of activity, the team has delivered marketing campaigns that beat previous years’ results and exceed industry standards. The ‘Time for Us’ campaign, supported by two national newspaper supplements achieved 41:1 return on investment and generated an incremental visitor spend in excess of £7.3 million and the ‘Family Fun’ campaign achieved a 58:1 return. Our new consumer websites attract over 100,000 visitors a month, helping to drive business to your own websites.
Keeping business that you’ve worked hard to attract
Staying ahead of the game is important when you’ve already invested to win business. We have continued to develop and extend our training opportunities in 2010, including the introduction of Welcome Host Gold, which has exceeded customer expectations. Over 3,700 delegates from large businesses (Bunn Leisure and London Gatwick Airport) to B&Bs and guesthouses took advantage of our extensive range of training opportunities. We secured significant funding to support training opportunities allowing businesses to access them at highly subsidised rates.
How’s business in 2010?
The monthly Market Intelligence update allowed you to measure how your business is performing against your competitors and the industry trends. The updates have formed part of the monthly e-newsletters which have also kept you up to speed with the latest industry developments and opportunities at Tourism South East. We have also carried out a range of dedicated visitor and resident surveys for a number of our members including Bicester Village in Oxfordshire, Beaulieu in Hampshire and the Brighton Cultural Quarter which have helped businesses understand their customers better and anticipate future trends.
Making Quality our business
We’ve made sure that Quality stays at the top of the agenda in 2010.
Seven tourism businesses took silver and gold awards at the EnjoyEngland Awards for Excellence, a total not exceeded by any other region. Our own regional awards were rebranded as the Beautiful South Awards for Excellence and the programme welcomed a 30% increase in entrants. Over 400 guests celebrated their successes at a glittering night of celebration at
Mercedes-Benz World in Surrey. In terms of PR, the Awards generated in excess of 10 million Opportunities to See for its finalists.
Influencing Government on behalf of tourism
2010 has been an eventful and successful year on the lobbying front. A General Election and the formation of a new Government have meant that we have worked hard to influence the policy-making process. A key victory was the Daylight Saving Bill which, if it becomes law, could result in a £2.5 billion boost to the tourism sector. We are also working closely with the emerging Local Enterprise Partnerships to ensure tourism features on each agenda.
Networking your way through 2010
Over 25 member events this year! From networking opportunities, where members have enjoyed exclusive tours at venues such as Hampton Court Palace, through to business generation opportunities such as Best of Britain and Ireland, Excursions and Group Travel Fairs. From Success through Innovation conferences to our most recent regional conference in November attended by over 200 businesses, where you were given the opportunity to help design the new Tourism South East.
Looking forward - a huge opportunity on the horizon
Our members are geographically well positioned to capitalise on the once in a lifetime opportunity presented by the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The On Your Marks… Get Set… Go! strategy has helped focus these ambitions. We have represented you at events such as Destination Britain Workshops in Dubai and Meet the Media events in Brussels and Amsterdam. Our 2012 focused PR activity has resulted in 18 Familiarisation Trips and over £10 million advertising value equivalent. In addition we have worked closely with partners to offer Olympic and Paralympic teams training facilities in the South East.
