Visitor Management Strategy

During the timeline of the previous Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead’s (RBWM’s) Visitor Management Strategy, there was a predominant concentration on the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games; both in delivery and realising opportunity. It created a focus for all parties to collectively deliver success and, while as a destination Games time can’t be replicated, the Royal Borough can learn from the power of collaboration.

The Visitor Management and Marketing team were instrumental in achieving 80% of the strategy actions. It has focused continuously on improving quality for visitors, facilitated by the knowledge and networks it has built with local and national partners.

UK wide, we are no longer operating in an environment of strong financial support for tourism. Since the demise of Regional Development Agencies and devolution of power to a local level, Local Authorities make individual decisions on the resources dedicated to the non-statutory function of Visitor Management.

RBWM places a high priority on tourism, however with more urgent challenges, the future delivery of tourism can only be successful with a stronger private sector role; beyond consultation and discussion; acting at the heart of delivery.

A number of individual businesses in the Borough are strong iconic brands in their own right and help to support many micro businesses. The reality is, a step change is required to achieve real term growth, where more businesses contribute and more gain.

There is an industry acceptance that not all challenges and opportunities can be addressed and resources therefore will be focused on a limited number of actions that produce the greatest return. The creation of industry-led task groups will provide a clear direction and momentum for change.

Tourism Action Plan 2017-20: Executive Summary

Read the full Tourism Action Plan 2017-20, PDF 850 KB

The 2008 strategy provided clear objectives and a comprehensive action plan to increase expenditure from £380 million in 2006 by £45 million per year by 2016.

Over 80% of actions were achieved or partly achieved; contributing to a total visitor spend in 2015 of £485 million. The Visitor Management and Marketing Team played a significant operational role, connecting people to the tourism product, through information, marketing, PR and training.

An analysis of data for the period 2011-2015 (Tourism South East) shows that;

• The volume of trips and nights has increased since 2011, with both domestic and overseas visitor nights on an upwards trend
• The RBWM expenditure figures for 2011-15, broadly shadow the level of inflation

In 2015

• Day visitors contributed 56% of expenditure. 63% of expenditure was on food & drink and shopping
• The average spend per night was £105 for domestic visitors and £107 for overseas visitors
• The industry supported 7157 FTE jobs

Visitors continue to rate Windsor highly as a welcoming and atmospheric destination and are ‘very likely’ to recommend to others. The cost and ease of parking remains a visitor concern, along with perceptions of an overcrowded environment scoring lower than other factors.

Looking ahead there are a number of challenges and opportunities within and beyond tourism, including; the decline in the RBWM tourism budget, the uncertainty of leaving the European Union, US President policy direction and the threat of terrorism remains high.

The analysis of the last five years continues to demonstrate the destination’s vulnerability in changing circumstances and highlights potential opportunities for both the leisure and business tourism markets. The quality of tourism data needs to be addressed in terms of accommodation occupancy data, a Borough-wide visitor survey and expenditure data adjusted for inflation.

Five quality themes remain valid from the previous strategy; Travel & transport, Product development, Marketing, Information and People.

This strategy identifies the objectives that remain relevant and sets out clear recommendations for delivery under the quality themes:

• To ensure that visitors to the Borough can get in, out and about with ease
• To provide and influence the use of appropriate alternatives to car travel
• To ensure our product meets the needs of loyal visitors as their demands change, as well as meeting the needs of new visitors in emerging markets
• To rebrand Windsor to ensure its proximity to London and Heathrow is understood
• To reposition the destination as ‘family-focused’
• To provide accessible, accurate and appropriate information that puts the needs of the visitor first and to facilitate information among the local tourism industry
• To ensure frontline staff act as proud ambassadors, understand the needs of visitors and are knowledgeable about the destination

The overall goal for 2017-20 remains to deliver real terms expenditure growth. As in the last strategy, the focus should remain on getting overseas and domestic holiday makers to stay overnight in the Borough and attracting the potentially lucrative business tourism market.