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Suubmission on the Draft Visitor Strategy |
Wanganui Chamber of Commerce & Industry Inc (est. 1885)
PO Box 88, Wanganui
Ph: (06) 345 0080
Fax: (06) 345 1182
Email: info@wanganuichamber.co.nz
Website: www.wanganuichamber.co.nz
Proudly supported by:
August 31, 2009
Draft Visitor strategy
Wanganui District Council
P.O Box 637
Wanganui
Attachment: Submission on the Draft visitor strategy
The Wanganui Chamber of Commerce supports council initiatives to attract and retain visitors to the Wanganui District.
We agree with the opening statement in the introduction that Wanganui must improve its image – the population is declining and our tourism traffic is underperforming. Nothing new here at all, in fact many of these issues were raised in 2003, 2005 by Wanganui’s business community during WDC facilitated consultation meetings.
Its’ also no surprise to see the results of the perceptions survey, (Good data to have) which reveals that much of our problem is in a lack of investment of a coordinated marketing campaign promoting the natural landscape features incorporating the river and surround national park.
This strategy document promotes an understanding of the issues, consultation with stakeholders and contains some goals and plans supported by high level measures. However the accountability for the investment ratepayers are supposed to be making in this area is difficult to see.
A recent survey (Ref: Attachment) of our members supports the need for this document to contain as a minimum, a project plan detailing how the strategic vision and goals will be achieved. (See note below) We would also like to see the Chamber listed as a stakeholder on Page 7 and were disappointed to see it not listed.
*Project plan detail: As a minimum, would include a budget for 12 months showing, money being invested and where it comes from, and action plan detailing who is going to do what by when, when each milestone will be completed and how it will be measured.
We also feel that a big issue (Not even touched on in this draft strategy) with visitor marketing in Wanganui failing, is in the track record of the Wanganui District Council executing on the strategy’s for which it creates.
In the Tourism example, the amalgamation of Destination Wanganui and Enterprise Wanganui into the super agency Wanganui Inc. which was going to solve all the marketing and agency coordination problems was a failure.
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We would like to see a detailed plan that acknowledges past service delivery failings in the District marketing area, clearly identifies what went wrong and what will be done differently going forward to ensure any further money invested achieves the results the business community so desperately need.
The document shows an investment of $180,000 into the image building of Wanganui, good to see the investment, but what is the money being used for?
Napier and Wellington are quoted as examples of areas where they got results. The strategy does not show how much investment has been made by Wellington and Napier in marketing campaigns or details on how they got the results.
For the investment made in preparing this document of $40,000, Information such as this should have been included, to ensure the investments made are at least as substantial and our delivery is equally as effective.
Philip Shackleton
Chief Executive
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