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City of York Council |
Committee Minutes |
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Meeting |
Decision Session - Executive Member for Culture, Leisure and Communities |
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Date |
22 September 2020 |
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Present |
Councillor Smalley (Executive Member) |
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8. Declarations of Interest
At this point in the meeting, the Executive Member confirmed he had no personal interests not included on the Register of Interests, nor any prejudicial or disclosable pecuniary interest, to declare in the business of the agenda.
9. Minutes
Resolved: That the minutes of the Decision Session held on 28 August 2020 be approved and signed by the Executive Member as a correct record.
10. Public Participation
It was confirmed that there were no registered speakers under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.
11. Tourism Marketing - Delivering The Autumn Schedule
The Executive Member considered a report that provided an update on how the Council and Make It York proposed drawing on the tourism marketing budget to work with partners and develop covid-19 safe events and experiences to encourage visitors (including residents) into the city throughout September to December 2020.
The Corporate Director Economy and Place reported that in light of the changes to the alert levels over the last 24 hours, the first recommendation in the report had changed to:
‘Endorse the proposed approach to supporting the City’s Tourism Economy to ensure that the strategy implementation follows the Executive’s agreed approach to the government’s alert levels.’
The Head of Communications explained the background to marketing activities undertaken to date. The Head of Culture, Wellbeing, Communications and Marketing (Make It York - MiY) then gave an overview of how MiY delivered key marketing activities from the council-funded tourism marketing plan. The Assistant Director, Regeneration and Asset Management noted that footfall had returned to 80-90% of the usual levels and she noted the need to be able to respond to government alert levels.
The Executive Member invited the Executive Director of the York Business Improvement District (BID) to give feedback from businesses. The Executive Director reported that 77% of businesses represented by the BID were in the retail and hospitality sector. He congratulated the partnerships in the city and noted that York had performed relatively well compared to other cities during COVID-19. The feedback from businesses was that footfall was down and he was hopeful that the momentum of people visiting the city would continue through autumn from September through to Christmas.
The Executive Member thanked York BID and its partners for their work. He then invited comments from the MiY Managing Director who noted that York has felt safe and busy and that key players had done a good job of getting key message out. He added that the longer term future looked positive and he thanked the Head of Communications (CYC) and Head of Culture, Wellbeing, Communications and Marketing (MiY) for delivering the strategy and he endorsed the recommendations.
The Executive Member thanked partners for their work and acknowledged the work that had gone into the tourism marketing plan. He welcomed suggestions from residents and urged them to put their suggestions forward to MiY, CYC and the York BID.
He then:
Resolved:
1. That endorsement be given to the approach to supporting the City’s Tourism Economy to ensure that the strategy implementation follows the Executive’s agreed approach to the government’s alert levels.
2. That approval be given to the outline event and experience programme and delegate to the Corporate Director of Economy and Place agreement of scope to deliver the proposed events programme.
3. That approval be given to the use of the remaining £34,500 budget from the Leeds City Region business rates pilot funded York Narrative project to supplement the marketing strategy budget to fund the programme of events and experiences and delegate to the Corporate Director of Economy and Place the final allocation of funding and budget.
Reasons:
1. To support the City’s tourism industry in the important pre-Christmas period to provide visibility and transparency as to the allocation of budget and activity by the Council and Make It York for Tourism support.
2. Funding provided by the council for the tourism marketing plan will deliver a series of themed events and experiences delivered by partners.
Cllr Smalley, Executive Member
[The meeting started at 4.00pm and finished at 4.26pm].