Workshop Heralds Guernsey Tourism Revamp

The newly formed Tourism Management Board held its first meeting with the industry and it felt like a positive start.

Members of Guernsey's tourism sector gathered at Les Cotils yesterday (18 April) to look at how to improve Guernsey's Tourism Industry.

The workshop was held by the new Tourism Management Board. Its make up was previously criticised by the Guernsey Hospitality Association for ignoring recommendations from an independent tourism consultant Keith Beecham, who now sits on the Board.

Its chair, Hannah Beacom, says the get together was a success:

"We are taking away the notes from discussions and using those at the next board meeting. They will definitely be steering the direction of the strategy.

Different sectors are now talking to each other saying if you could do this for us, it would make our life so much easier."

She says the conversations on collaboration were interesting:

"The taxi industry has asked for better-quality information on events. Not just that there is an event, but how many non-local visitors are you expecting, because that’s most likely to be the people that they will be asked to transport.

They also asked if the carriers could give some idea of how full flights or boats are so they know how many taxis are needed - they want to be waiting for business, not sitting at a taxi rank for hours not picking anybody up.

It’s all about making those connections so that we’re working closer together."

She says the board's goals are simple:

"We will promote the message to the right markets to make sure that they’re aware of where we are marketing ourselves honestly, and as an industry working together so that we can deliver the best experience possible."

The managing director of The Little Big Hotel Group, Charlotte Walker, attended the session. She says it was productive:

"It’s fantastic to get a room of people who are full of ambition and passion for tourism.

We should’ve been doing this years ago but it does suddenly feel like we’ve got some momentum and I’m really hopeful that from this we can start to build a strategy that’s positive and move in the direction that makes people happy."

She added that there's still a long way to go:

"It’s a massive job to fulfill, and we're not underestimating the task at hand, but as business owners we are personally invested in seeing this work. We need to see this through and see a positive impact, but certainly listening to the opinions is critical to making that happen.

This is a constant ongoing conversation in an ever-changing industry. We cannot agree on a plan for the next five years and stick to it -we’ve got to be able to evolve and change."

Ian Vaudin from Donkey Taxis and a TMB member says this level of engagement makes him feel optimistic about the industry's future:

"I was really surprised at how many different people from the tourism industry joined us. I think it was really successful.

I hope we have these meetings more regularly. I know we’ve already scheduled one for October.

We've certainly got a chairperson who is very single-minded in the way that she wants to approach this and I think with everyone here we will be successful going forward. We’ve just come out of three years that have been really tough for all of us, and yes, the future is bright, but we’ve just got to make sure that we make it bright."