AMA JAM issue 51 by PAUL VATER

> Cultural tourism

ISSUE 51 | AUGUST 2013

Cultural tourism – the universal fix? It’s not the destination, it’s the journey Bringing our nation to life

> Never without Art

> The Manchester Weekender

> Mamma Mia!

Contents

> Cultural tourism Cultural tourism – the universal fix? ............ 6 Case study: Never without Art ...................... 8 It’s not the destination, it’s the journey . 10 Case study: The Manchester Weekend er .. 14 Bringing our nation to life ............................. 16 Case study: Mamma Mia! ........................... 18 Developing cultural experiences – a how-to guide ............................................ 20

60 Just a minute

JAM is compiled and edited by Helen Bolt and Cath Hume. JAM is published by the Arts Marketing Association 7a Clifton Court, Cambridge CB1 7BN t 01223 578078 e info@a-m-a.co.uk w www.a-m-a.co.uk Tw @amadigital Designed by Sugarfree t 020 7619 7430 w www.sugarfreedesign.co.uk

Make JAM for the AMA JAM is always on the lookout for new writers with good ideas for case studies and features, especially from some of those smaller organisations out there. If you would like to contribute, please email: helen@a-m-a.co.uk 2 > JAM 51

JAM is sponsored by

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Cultural tourism – the universal fix?

It’s not the destination, it’s the journey

Bringing our nation to life

Developing cultural experiences – a howto guide

Cover: The new Pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery, Hyde Park, London, 2013. Designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto © Paul Barratt, Sugarfree

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> Regulars Spotlight ................................................................. 3 Research round-up ............................................. 4 Middle Pages – AMA member reps .......... 12 Just a minute ...................................................... 23

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JAM is published four times per annum. UK subscription rates £39 per annum Overseas subscription rates £59 per annum 6-month trial membership: receive JAM and benefit from member rates for training events, workshops and conference for just £58 + VAT. e isky@a-m-a.co.uk © Arts Marketing Association, 2013. All rights are reserved and reproduction of any parts is not allowed without the written permission of the publishers. Opinions expressed in JAM are not necessarily those of the AMA and no responsibility is accepted for advertising content. Any material submitted for publication may be edited for reasons of style, content or available space. Meanings will not be altered without permission from the author. ISSN 1474-1172

JAM is available in large print or electronic format. e helen@a-m-a.co.uk t 01223 578078 JAM is available at www.a-m-a.co.uk/jam

> EDITORIAL

A well-travelled journal

ppropriately this issue hits you in the summer when we are all (hopefully) getting the chance to travel, take time out and see what cultural offerings other towns and cities at home and abroad have to offer. As well as lounging on the beach or by the pool (reading your JAM) of course. If you do happen to have a well-travelled JAM with you in an exotic location … please Tweet us a pic @amadigital. In her regular research round up and before she’s off for her summer hols Heather Maitland takes us on a trip around some cultural tourism stats starting on page four. Pam Jarvis investigates how culture is looked at as a fix for many things and just how involved cultural tourism can be (page 6). Kerstin Glasow reviews

how the Art Fund dramatically grew their membership base and increased funding for museums and galleries across the UK (page 8) while Helen Palmer takes a look at the current focus on cultural tourism and what it means for the cultural sector (page 10). She joins up with Susie Stubbs to take us on a visit to the Manchester Weekender on page 14 and then Jonathan Mountford looks at bringing our nation to life (page 16). He reports on the arrival next year of MAMMA MIA! to Blackpool and how they hope to attract many more visitors to the resort. Karan Thompson guides us through the background and inception of the Tourism Toolkit for Ireland’s Cultural Experiences which helps cultural organisations in Ireland to realise their potential and develop their offer within the cultural tourism

market (page 20). We travel from Ireland to Wales for Just a Minute with Joanna Davies (page 23) while AMA team members Neil and Isky take us around the country with the AMA member reps in the Middle Pages. The Spotlight lands on Claire Treadwell as she reveals what she’s been up to on her career journey to become Head of Marketing here at the AMA.

Helen Bolt Marketing Manager, AMA conferences and JAM editor e helen@a-m-a.co.uk tw @amadigital

> SPOTLIGHT

Spotlight on Claire Treadwell

‘T

he mound is on fire’, is not what you want to hear on the radio as you see smoke bellowing over a journalist’s head while being interviewed. Quick exit and one of Boudicca’s ancient sites was prevented from ruin. Other memorable moments as a tourism and marketing officer include; Bangra dancing in priory ruins, herding the cast of Dad’s Army around a new trail, staying up all night as part of a paranormal investigation and seeing 10,000 residents and visitors have a great time as part of an international carnival. It was a varied job description and one that played a huge part in developing my interest in all things marketing and how arts and cultural activities can bring a destination to life. Promoting filming locations led

me to join a regional screen agency working closely with the UK Film Council. I particularly enjoyed working with our locations department that convinced filmmakers we would be able to close Dartford Tunnel and that one of the flattest counties in the land could pass as a mountainous region and even the moon. Other highlights include seeing a project move from script to screen at Cannes and London film festivals, organising BAFTA screenings and premieres, and publicising our studio activity that was home to productions such as the Harry Potter franchise and Batman films. After five years I joined the New Wolsey Theatre, working with a great team on a diverse programme including nostalgic ‘gigsicals’ 20th Century Boy, Reasons to be Cheerful (RTBC), Mods and Rox. I’ll never forget when the cast of RTBC appeared on stage at the

opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games – we’d come a long way from that cold wintery day in Ipswich when we opened the show with no idea how the audience would react. Now as head of marketing at the AMA I’m looking forward to working with the team here and combining my experience to support the wider arts sector.

Claire Treadwell Head of Marketing, AMA t 01223 578078 e claire@a-m-a.co.uk w a-m-a.co.uk JAM 51 > 3

Going anywhere nice on your holidays? Take a trip around the cultural tourism statistics with Heather Maitland

t’s the first week in August. I get in my car and drive for five hours to spend eight days dancing my socks off in a field full of cow pats. And that makes me a cultural tourist. Overseas and domestic visitors make up 90% of the 106,000 individuals that each attends an average of 3.3 of the UK’s 350 folk music festivals. Together, we spend £77m. Not all of us brave the cow pats, so we spend £8.34m on 300,000 bed nights in hotels and B&B’s. We love our ‘holidays with music’ so much that 76% of us come back to our favourite festival most years. Feeling tempted? Be warned, folk festivals are addictive. A quarter of visitors are first timers and three quarters of them come back the following year1. And this enthusiasm applies to all kinds of music concerts and festivals. In the past five years, there has been a 69% increase in spend by UK

visitors on what Mintel describes as ‘affordable escapism’2. But can we really argue that cultural festivals are essential for tourism? After all, only 4% of UK and overseas visitors in 2011 said they came to Scotland specifically because of a cultural event or festival (although the authors of the guide think that the difficulty of getting information and booking tickets may be a factor)3. Even the term ‘cultural tourism’ is difficult to define. Almost anything could be a cultural experience. But visitors don’t tend to think like that with two-thirds of visitors to the UK who said they were not on a cultural holiday visiting a museum or gallery all the same4. So, why the focus on cultural tourism? In 2010, overseas visits to the UK dropped by 1%, even though overseas tourism to the rest of Europe rose by

3%. The volcanic ash cloud and severe winter were blamed but it appears a bit more complicated than that. Visits from countries with the weakest economies dropped by more than 10%, but visits increased from the countries that were better weathering the economic storm5. So we need strategies that maximise spend and increase rates of return. A flurry of research shows that cultural tourism brings all sorts of benefits. Cultural tourists spend more: overseas tourists who bought tickets for a music festival before they travelled spent an average of £99 per night compared to £72 for overseas visitors as a whole6. More than half of the £250m gross spend of visitors to the twelve major Edinburgh Festivals was with local tourism providers7. A report by The Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism found that cultural events raised awareness of an area,

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> RESEARCH ROUND-UP

FOOTNOTES

1. Morris, Hargreaves, McIntyre, A report into the impact of folk festivals on cultural tourism, The Association of Festival Organisers, 2003, pp 4-5 2. Tourism Intelligence Scotland, Events, Festivals and Cultural Tourism in Scotland, 2012, p12 consulted at http://www. tourism-intelligence.co.uk/TIS_SWF/PDF/ TIS_-_Events_Festival_and_Cultural_ Tourism_in_Scotland.pdf 20/5/2013 3. Tourism Intelligence Scotland, (2012) p24 4. Sejul Malde, Moving Targets, Culture24, 2012, p16 5. VisitEngland, Marketing Plan 2011-15, 2010, p3

enhanced its reputation, extended the tourism season, increased income from tourism in the area out of season and preserved the unique culture of an area by celebrating it. The tourism authorities see culture as an important part of their national offer. VisitEngland’s brand statement describes culture as part of England’s personality and history and heritage as part of its soul8. VisitBritain segments the market by life stage and level of commitment to the UK as a destination. Committed visitors represent 30% of holiday makers and are open to taking additional breaks similar to the ones they take already. The families in this group would consider extra midlength breaks and the pre-family segment would consider extra short breaks. VisitEngland’s strategy is to persuade them to actually take those additional holidays by giving them greater depth of information and choice of ideas9. And that’s where culture comes in. Overseas visitors rated Britain as fourth out of 50 nations in terms of having an exciting contemporary culture, seventh as a nation with a rich cultural heritage, and eighth as a nation excelling at sports10. But the strength of our cultural legacy can be problematic. Potential overseas visitors get many of their perceptions of Britain from literature and cinema. The strongest perceptions are those of the industrial revolution and colonial Britain and they remain pretty much undented by more recent books

and films, however popular11. Almost a quarter of overseas visitors visited a museum or gallery in 2006, rising to 41% of visitors on holiday. They are persuading people to choose Britain as a destination and not just among older people. Visiting a museum or gallery was the third most popular activity for European young people visiting Britain. Only the Japanese said it was the most important factor, but ratings are so consistently positive, it comes out as the fourth most popular activity across all overseas visitors12. Contemporary culture appeals to particular age groups and markets, like Sweden, South Africa and Australia and including some emerging tourism markets especially Poland, Russia, Argentina and Mexico13. It is not a universal driver. Although British music has a high profile, only 5% of overseas visitors agreed strongly that it was a key driver and 20% disagreed strongly14. One in three US adults say they listen to British music regularly but only 19% of US survey respondents said music had an influence on their choice of music destination15. Although overseas visitors ranked a visit to theatre, opera and ballet 24th out of 30 listed activities16, that still represents 3.1m attenders, 10% of all overseas visitors. The longer their stay, however, the more likely they were to attend17. Art galleries were highly rated as the eighth best activity but only figured 17th on visitors’ to do lists. The difference between markets

6. UK Music, Destination: Music, 2010, p9 7. Tourism Intelligence Scotland (2012), p13 8. VisitEngland, (2010), p3 9. VisitEngland, (2010), p10 10. VisitBritain, Culture and Heritage Topic Profile, 2010, p2 11. VisitBritain (2010), p58 12. VisitBritain (2010), p41 13. VisitBritain (2010), p68 14. VisitBritain (2010), p69 15. VisitBritain (2010), p75 16. VisitBritain (2010), p43 17. VisitBritain, Foresight, Issue 87, January 2011, p3 18. Sejul Malde (2012), p14

is pronounced, though. Visitors from the Nordic nations are among the least likely to go to an art gallery but, together with Irish visitors, among the most likely to go to a musical. Even as a niche tourism product, culture has an important role to play in the visitor experience and contributes to the local economy. Beatles tourism, for example, accounts for 600,000 visits to Liverpool, bringing £20m in gross spend18. If you want to make the case for the contribution your organisation makes to the tourism economy, there is an easy-to-use, thoroughly tested web tool supported by Arts Council England at http://www.eitoolkit.org.uk/ default.aspx

Heather Maitland Consultant and Associate Fellow at the Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick e heather@heathermaitland.co.uk w www.heathermaitland.co.uk JAM 51 > 5

Cultural tourism – the universal fix? Pam Jarvis investigates how culture is looked at as a fix for many things – health, social capital, community cohesion, economic growth, education, regeneration …

estination managers and local authority tourism units have realised for some time the potential contribution culture can make to their visitor economy, to animate their streets and public spaces and to enhance their destination brand by providing something that will differentiate them above their competitors. Places have, for centuries, been commodities to be consumed, branded and packaged like any other. London 2012 and the Cultural Olympiad were seen (by some) as a huge boost to the UK’s international and domestic tourism economy. As local authorities face major funding challenges many are downsizing their tourism infrastructure – despite the fact that tourism is a UK growth sector and a buoyant visitor economy is integral to the sustainability of many places. It is timely to reassess the role of cultural organisations in cultural tourism. At the heart of tourism seems to be a search for a new, exciting and authentic experience; something that goes beyond the mundane and offers a new perspective. Issues and investigations about what cultural tourism involves and what makes a ‘successful’ destination have intrigued our company; sam-culture, for some time. This article shares our thoughts on what has emerged from years of projects and conversations with people working in all aspects of tourism and placemaking. So who’s interested in cultural tourism and why? Trying to grasp the various expectations and demands on what cultural tourism can deliver is like constructing a huge Venn diagram. It involves many different players: regenerators and planners, cultural organisations and venues; local business; heritage; retail and hospitality; transport; politicians and so on. There are a raft of agenda aims to make places more attractive and sustainable, residentially and commercially as places to live, visit or do business; to be a magnet that attracts high-spending visitors; to boost the image of a place and create the sense of civic pride. And there’s also a more problematic issue: not all residents want what they see as the ‘tourism invasion’, equating this to crowded places, no space in their local pub and disruption from which they perceive no benefit. Add to this the complexity and fragmentation of the tourism industry 6 > JAM 51

which in many places is a maze of networks, consortia, pressure groups, websites and splinter groups, as well as agencies and local authority departments. If a place makes the decision to develop its role as a destination for cultural tourism the starting point – as with any venture – is defining what success would look like. Who will benefit? And in what way? Going back to the idea of the Venn diagram the starting point is to find the convergences and overlaps between all these different interests and agenda – and to recognise the divergences and danger spots in order to drive the joined-up thinking that forges the motivation, strategic vision for cultural tourism development. And if this discussion is to be fruitful and constructive it is important to get all the participants thinking along similar lines and working to a shared vision. sam-culture’s primary research for a wide range of cultural and heritage organisations and festivals has helped us to understand more about expectations, needs, motivations and impacts and to begin to segment the cultural tourism market. At one end of a spectrum there is the tourist who makes a conscious decision to visit a cultural destination, an attraction or event; they do their homework, research and planning. They therefore have high expectations of a creative and special cultural experience, from investing time and money, and something in which they can creatively participate. For some, culture is not the primary motivation but is an ‘added extra’ – part of seeing a variety of local sights which adds to a pleasant visit and influences their choice of destination. Others are more casual, ‘accidental’ cultural tourists who decide to do something cultural by chance. Almost every town and city in England says that it has a cultural offer: vibrant cultural scene has become the most overworked phrase in tourism marketing. Our seminar series, The Making of ’ and our think tanks explored the interface of the cultural offer, regeneration and tourism in Medway, Margate, Milton Keynes, Winchester, Portsmouth and Brighton. In each case we opened up for discussion across all involved – or potentially involved – as to what might be the catalyst for growth and repositioning. Essentially, we aimed to build a sense of shared understanding about the

> FEATURE

FOOTNOTES

Florida, Richard (2002). Rise of the Creative Class, Basic Books Laurajane Smith, Emma Waterton, Steve Watson Editors (2012) The Cultural Moment in Tourism, Routledge McKercher, B and Du Cros, H (2002). Cultural Tourism: The Partnership Between Tourism and Cultural Heritage Management. Haworth Press, NYC Paddison, R and Miles, S (2009). Culture-led Urban Regeneration, Routledge Smith, Melanie K. and Robinson, Mike (2006) Cultural Tourism in a Changing World: Politics, Participation And (Re) presentation, Channel View Publications, Illustration by Sugarfree Design

Smith, Melanie K. (2006) Tourism, Culture and Regeneration, CABI Timothy, Dallen J. (2007) The political nature of cultural heritage and tourism, Ashgate

significance and potential of cultural tourism in contributing to successful places and communities. We brought together public and private sectors: local business, the hospitality industry, arts, heritage and cultural organisations and attractions, politicians and opinion formers, and community groups to look at how these places were performing as destinations – and tested this received wisdom and commonly held perceptions with a set of external voices. We asked travel journalist, Simon Calder, place-brander Simon Anholt, architects Terry Farrell and Piers Gough, and creative thinker Charles Landry to take an objective look at these places from the outside. They challenged assumptions and shared their insights with local contributors and looked at opportunities for places to connect up and make more of their cultural offer. Cultural organisations hold a portfolio of the attributes needed to help grow cultural tourism and drive change in their area – not just because they have the talent to create the products and unique opportunities that potentially attract cultural tourists. Our think tanks showed the potential that the culture sector itself can offer in the development of cultural tourism: • Create vision and strategic thinking for their own organisations, • show leadership, ambition and capacity to see the bigger picture, broker and negotiate partnerships for critical mass,

• tell a good story about the place and its real character – backed up by evidence that reinforces the value and impacts of culture, • apply the skills of marketing and communication, • reach out to their communities and respond to their needs. Ed Vaizey, Culture and Creative Industries Minister, has referred to the new partnership between VisitEngland and Arts Council England and encouraged and challenged them to champion England’s cultural offer, co-ordinate activity, and support destinations to grow their economies by nurturing local culture. The approach we developed at sam-culture demonstrates that if cultural tourism is going to work, it needs local leadership to get wide buy-in; a commitment that it will benefit residents as well as visitors, the vision to grasp opportunities and to create experiences that are engaging and authentic and involve visitors with the place and its culture.

Pam Jarvis Director, sam-culture t 01273 882112 e pam.jarvis@sam-culture.com w sam-culture.com JAM 51 > 7

Never without Art Kerstin Glasow reviews how the Art Fund dramatically grew their membership base and increased funding for museums and galleries

stablished in 1903, the Art Fund is the national fundraising charity for art which helps museums and galleries across the UK to acquire great works of art in all forms and media, from treasure hoards and Old Master paintings to contemporary sculpture. We receive no government support but are funded entirely by the public, with the majority of our income coming from our members. In return for their support they receive free admission at over 200 charging museums, galleries, castles and historic houses across the UK and 50% off entry to major exhibitions. At the end of 2010 we were stuck between a rock and a hard place: we were determined to increase our funding for museums at a time when the government was reducing its commitments for the arts but we were struggling with a static and ageing membership base. Awareness and understanding of our charitable work and the benefits of supporting us was low among non-members. We knew that in order to meet our goal of increasing our funding for museums and galleries we would have to dramatically grow our membership base. Our second objective was to develop additional means of supporting our partner museums and galleries beyond our grant giving activities. We were keen to help our network of 550 partner museums generate additional

visitors and income. So, how did we go about it? Until 2011 the focus of our communication strategy – with the public, our members and the museum sector – had been mainly about our grantgiving activities. Large-scale national fundraising campaigns, for example JMW Turner’s The Blue Rigi with Tate and the Staffordshire Hoard (for Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum), put an emphasis on our remit to ‘save art’. Working with creative agency 101 we decided to develop a new strand of messaging which put our membership card, rebranded as the National Art Pass, at the heart of our public-facing activity. This was achieved without changing the actual benefits of the product. The Pass took centre stage, and ‘Never without Art’ became the organising idea for all our related communications to promote the concept. It also echoed our overall mission and is a motto for art lovers everywhere. This re-branding of our proposition allowed us to broaden our reach and also target younger audience segments. We launched the National Art Pass with an integrated marketing campaign, which included outdoor, press and digital in London and the South East plus regional activities in important hubs such as Edinburgh and other cities with a high concentration of both prospects and partner galleries

The Pass took centre stage, and ‘Never without Art’ became the organising idea for all our related communications to promote the concept 8 > JAM 51

and museums. A partnership with the Guardian and the Observer newspapers complimented these activities. Over an eighteen-month period, following the launch of the Pass, we embarked on the second phase by evolving our current communication channels and developing new platforms through which to promote our partner museums to art lovers – both Art Fund members and nonmembers – across the country. The biggest adventure was the development of our Art Guide app (www.artfund.org/app), a free listings app for iPhone and Android smart phones which features 700 museums, galleries and historic places as well as exhibitions across the country. We also re-launched our website www.artfund. org, one of the first arts websites in the UK using responsive design, optimised for use on mobiles and tablets. The app and website are integral parts of a wider digital communications strategy which also includes our social media platforms. Segmented e-newsletters (www.artfund.org/enews) allow us to provide subscribers with tailored exhibition recommendations and special offers relevant to their region. This enables us to regularly promote even more of our partner museums and galleries. The comprehensive listings of art organisations and

> CASE STUDY

The app and website are integral parts of a wider digital communications strategy which also includes our social media platforms.

exhibitions across all our digital channels have established our website and app as a one-stop shop for art information across the UK and the Art Fund as relevant and reliable source. More than 85,000 people have downloaded the Art Guide app so far; 80% of app users are repeat visitors planning exhibition visits and days out. In order to be able to promote our partners’ exhibitions to museum and gallery visitors across the country we devised an Exhibitions Guide leaflet. Published every four months it features some of the best exhibitions in the UK and is distributed by more than 600 partner museums and displayed at additional cultural venues. These new communication tools enable us to proactively promote our museum network to Art Fund members and to hundreds of thousands of art lovers in Britain. Since 2011 our museum network has increased by 20% to more than 650 partners. The vast majority of the new museums are marketing partners who want to capitalise on our

communication channels and value our members as strong advocates for their exhibitions and collections. Visitor statistics prove that by promoting our partners online and offline we can make a huge difference to exhibition attendance. Since re-launching our membership card as the National Art Pass we managed to increase our membership base by 20%: there are currently more than 100,000 art lovers in the UK who own a National Art Pass. We were able to recruit a new generation of members: on average they are 21 years younger than existing supporters. 50% of Art Fund members say that since buying the Pass they visit museums and galleries more often than they did before and 90% ‘always or regularly’ visit the museum café or the shop. In this way the National Art Pass also brings incremental revenue for participating venues in admission income and secondary visitor spend. Overall, awareness of the Art Fund among non-members has risen from just below 30% across museum-going

audiences to 60%. National Art Pass awareness has grown to 45%. We have managed to change our public perception and have been able to establish the Art Fund as a cultural membership scheme and a provider of arts information in addition to our ongoing and fundamental role as a philanthropic arts charity. Thanks to the increase in membership we are now able to support even more acquisitions for public collections across the UK so these can be enjoyed by future generations to come.

Kerstin Glasow Senior Marketing Manager The Art Fund t 020 7225 4854 e KGlasow@artfund.org w artfund.org JAM 51 > 9

It’s not the destination, it’s the journey Helen Palmer takes a look at the current focus on cultural tourism and what that might mean for the cultural sector

ultural tourism is where it’s at. Take next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow as an example, or the Tour de France (with its Yorkshire detour), or even the nation’s plans to commemorate World War I. What unites them all is the fact that cultural tourism is a major part of the planning process. It doesn’t stop there. Cultural tourism is now firmly on the political agenda, thanks to a new Arts Council England and VisitEngland memorandum of understanding – which includes the promise of a new joint fund – and thanks in part to a changing funding landscape that now more than ever requires a greater return on public sector investment. All this means that cultural tourism is the phrase on everyone’s lips – but what does it actually mean? The short answer is pretty straightforward. It means using culture to motivate tourism visits, though not just any visits: cultural tourism focuses on targeting a highly discerning, highspending and niche market, one that rarely responds to traditional forms of tourism or destination marketing. The longer answer is that cultural tourism is fundamentally about people and partnerships. It often requires changing people’s perceptions of a place, and that takes time. It always requires a consistently good cultural ‘product’ over an extended period; those exhibitions and events, venues and, crucially, stories that drip feed the right messages to the right people across the right media. It thus needs to be led by the cultural sector but must be underpinned by a robust understanding of the tourism industry – because, at its heart, cultural tourism is driven by economic imperative: the need to attract visitors to a destination in order to spend money. Manchester is a city already well into its cultural tourism journey. Following the launch of Manchester International Festival in 2007, the city’s Museums Consortium spotted a gap in the market. The festival had acted as a mirror for Manchester’s cultural scene; its stakeholders realised that, outside this biennial event, it wasn’t attracting the same quantity or quality of culturally-motivated tourists. Funding was secured from the Northwest Regional Development Agency for a more ambitious cultural programme; a

partnership with Marketing Manchester and its tourist board Visit Manchester was established. This was a step change for the city’s museums and galleries, who were not only now working across their own sector in a different way, but were also working with an entirely new one. As with any fledgling relationship, it took time to understand each other’s strategic priorities and, in hindsight, some initial activity, such as the setting up of numerous sub-groups to tackle issues particular (such as wayfinding and transport), was over-ambitious. An early joint marketing campaign fell short of the mark, targeting existing visitors rather than those from outside the region – a prerequisite of the project’s funding agreement. But learning, and occasionally failing, is part of the cultural tourism process and, in Manchester, following extensive internal and external analysis, and scouring market data from within both the cultural and tourism sectors, an entirely new approach was devised. Led by Alex Saint (on behalf of Manchester Museums Consortium), Helen Palmer (then Director of Strategic Marketing at Marketing Manchester) and Susie Stubbs (appointed by Alex and Helen to oversee the project), that approach was to develop Creative Tourist. At first glance, Creative Tourist is easy to define. It is a consumer website – creativetourist.com – supported by seasonal tourism campaigns. It carries daily, year-round content that provides the ‘drip, drip’ of information required to change perceptions. But that’s just the visible part of the iceberg as, below the waterline, so much else occurs. It is here that partnership working comes to the fore. It is here that the project focuses on the needs of the market, rather than the wants of individual venues. It is here that new cultural products are developed. What is most important, though, is the fact that Creative Tourist is not democratic. It takes an editorial approach, presenting its target market only with relevant information and, because of that, it has become an independent, authoritative and trusted voice for visitors – exactly those discerning cultural tourists the city is trying to reach. Its editorial approach only works thanks to the partnerships that underpin Creative Tourist, from within

One of the biggest challenges faced by those working within cultural tourism is how to demonstrate impact. 10 > JAM 51

> FEATURE

Len Grant flash mob, photo © Andrew Palmer

the Museums Consortium to the wider cultural sector, via new relationships with hotels, restaurants and organisations such as BBC North. Those relationships operate at multiple levels, from museum and gallery directors to marketing staff, and Creative Tourist has developed everything from new programmes to a ‘cultural concierge’ initiative designed to improve the visitor experience at the city’s museums and galleries. And all while continuing to meet the daily web and social media demands of creativetourist.com. One of the biggest challenges faced by those working within cultural tourism is how to demonstrate impact. Collecting data is complicated by the fact that both the cultural and tourism sectors use different methodologies. After grappling with this issue since its inception, Creative Tourist is now working with a specialist researcher to develop a cultural tourism research and evaluation framework to identify the impacts and outcomes of its work. More detailed analytics, and a new ticketing affiliation with Quay Tickets, also provides added value for customers as well as earned income for the site. If cultural tourism comes with an economic caveat, and if it is about enabling the cultural sector to demonstrate its wider value and to ultimately become more sustainable, then that too is the territory that Creative Tourist occupies. It began life as a project but has, since April 2012 and with the agreement of its original partners, become an

independent, limited company. Its consultancy arm now works with clients across the country, as well as with Arts Council England and VisitEngland, to develop cultural tourism initiatives. That work ranges from auditing a location to assess its readiness for cultural tourism (both in terms of its cultural product and existing partnerships) and developing full cultural tourism strategies to events creation, digital branding and tactical marketing campaigns, all of it underpinned by an understanding of its clients, their particular markets and the firm belief that one size never fits all. So like cultural tourism itself, the work of Creative Tourist is simple and sustainable – but remains focused first and foremost on people and partnerships.

Helen Palmer Creative Tourist e Helen@creativetourist.com w creativetourist.com creativetouristconsults.com tw @creativetourist / @ctconsults JAM 51 > 11

The AMA member rep scheme

’m very pleased to report there’s more to celebrate on the member rep scheme with the largest number of attenders ever in the last 12 months. The launch of CultureHive. co.uk saw 16 meetings all around the UK from Aberdeen down to Bristol and Belfast across to Margate. Although slightly different from our usual network meeting we couldn’t have launched this fantastic new resource in your region without the help of the member reps. We were able to reach more members than ever before with face-to-face meetings local to you and people not able to attend or based internationally via our online stream thanks to Pilot Theatre. We are not sitting on our laurels though and we are now looking towards

the autumn round of meetings with a focus on Press and PR. These meetings will primarily give you a chance to network but also share knowledge and resources via the AMA website and blog and through CultureHive.co.uk. Watch out for an invite to a meeting happening near you soon. I’ve ended my annual update of the member rep scheme in the same vein since its inception and for once I’m very happy to repeat myself – network meetings still haven’t gone up in price … great value at a fiver!

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Neil Parker Freelance Business Services Manager, AMA e neil@a-m-a.co.uk

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3. East Midlands

England 1. East

Alithea Buchan UK Centre for Carnival Arts

Sam Morton V&A Museum of Childhood

Gillian Garratt Embrace Arts

Sarah Johnson Curve

2. London

4. North East Flavia Cerrone Royal Academy of Dance

Sally Goldsmith Theatre Royal Stratford East

Anna Cook Artichoke

Charlotte Handel Volunteer Centre Hackney

Emma Pybus Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums 7. South East

5. North West Bryony Bishop Turner Contemporary Marge Ainsley Freelance Marketing, Press and Research

Kate Gambrell Contact

6. South

Lucy Attrill Artswork

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Susan Meade Hampshire County Council Arts & Museums Service, Hog the Limelight

Jessica Blake-Lobb (maternity leave) Chichester Festival Theatre

Monique Kent Turner Contemporary

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> AMA MEMBER REPs

s Neil has mentioned, the CultureHive launches were a huge success. We had over 600 people attend with an additional 334 watching the live stream online from the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Malaysia, Netherlands, Belgium and Taiwan. It turned out to be even bigger than our annual conference as well as the combined total of attendees at our regular, regional networking meetings last year – 402. What is really encouraging is that 90% of the people that attended felt 8. South West

Laura Jeffery (maternity leave)

inspired to use CultureHive.co.uk. We also had some great feedback: ‘I look forward to using the resources and to contributing.’ Birmingham ‘Excited to start using it!’ Gateshead

These fantastic results are testament to the time and effort our member reps put in to make the launches a success. The AMA member rep scheme just wouldn’t be the valued service it is now without our reps hard work and enthusiasm for the AMA. Thank you!

‘Great resource. Looking forward to getting involved.’ Edinburgh ‘Inspiring and informative!’ Basingstoke ‘Great event, fantastic resource.’ Margate

Isky Roberts Membership Officer, AMA e isky@a-m-a.co.uk w www.a-m-a.co.uk

11. Northen Ireland

Scotland Sara Lock Salisbury Arts Centre

Beckie Smith The Roses Theatre

Roseanne Sturgeon Audiences NI

15. East

Rebecca Davis Puppet Animation Scotland

Wales 12. South

9. West Midlands Jodi Bennett BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Amy Rushby Royal Shakespeare Company Tim Rushby Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

Alex Hinton Dance Base 16. West

Siobhan Neil Welsh National Opera

Alison Lewis Glasgow Life

13. Mid

10. Yorkshire and Humberside

Ben Rothera Square Chapel Centre for the Arts

Kate Sanderson Indigo

Catriona Mackay Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Holly Wade Mid Wales Opera 17. North

14. North

Morwenna Honan Clwyd Theatr Cymru

Martin Gallagher Aberdeen Performing Arts JAM 51 > 13

Networked marketing: The Manchester Weekender Helen Palmer and Susie Stubbs take us on a visit to the Manchester Weekender

utumn in Manchester is always something special. October marks the start of ‘festival season’, a period when literature, science, food and drink and music festivals coincide with the opening of major new exhibitions and events across the city’s museums and galleries. For a city with one of the largest student populations in Europe, as well as major political conferences and a healthy tourism industry and infrastructure, autumn is also an apt time to showcase the city’s cultural offer. The Manchester Weekender, now into its fourth annual run, was created by Creative Tourist on behalf of Manchester Museums Consortium to take advantage of this autumnal ‘critical mass’ of culture, visitors and, crucially, partnerships. It kicks off the autumn cultural season by creating a weekend-long snapshot of the best of the city’s art and culture. It gives visitors sufficient motivation for booking a visit; it adds depth to the visitor experience; it encourages business and student/family tourists to extend their stay or return. So what is the Manchester Weekender? Working with independent promoters, cultural venues, festivals, retailers, hoteliers and more, Creative Tourist pulls together a single weekend of cultural activity in the city that acts as a signpost to the broader autumn offer. It programmes small-scale events that sit between existing, handpicked festivals, exhibitions and events; these smaller events act as the glue that binds the programme together. In so doing, Creative Tourist creates credible cultural itineraries for potential visitors 14 > JAM 51

– guides as to what’s on in the city and also to the city at large. The Weekender relies on close collaboration between the cultural sector and its partners. Despite a modest marketing and programming budget, for example, in 2012 it featured 75 events across 37 venues, events that ranged from a sell-out ‘flaneur’s guide to the Northern Quarter’ to a major new exhibition by David Shrigley. It also featured a marketing campaign delivered in partnership with Visit Manchester that resulted in a print advertising campaign across national media and on the London Underground, as well as e-marketing campaigns in international territories and access to other VisitEngland and VisitBritain marketing channels. And the Manchester Weekender has been remarkably effective. In 2010, Culture24 said that the Weekender ‘could do for art what the threeday festival format does for music’. Castlefield Gallery reported a 41% rise in visitor numbers compared with the same period the previous year. Print editorial coverage reached an estimated 1.3 million readers via publications such as the Telegraph and the Guardian. In 2011, this rose to a circulation of 5.7m with an equivalent advertising value of over £50,000. Partnership working extends to those not directly involved in the Weekender. In 2012, for example, Creative Tourist set up the Blog North Network (working in partnership with The Culture Vulture in Leeds and Open Stories in Manchester). Designed to support the professional development of bloggers, Creative Tourist tapped into this network to help promote the

Weekender via a special Blog North day. During the weekend; one blogger said of their visit: ‘Each visitor to Manchester this weekend took away a truly unique impression of the city, and that is why it rightly deserves to be considered the cultural hub of the north’. The Weekender is not all about big names and numbers, however. It is about creating immersive, intimate events alongside headline hooks that add depth to a visit to the city. So DJ-turned-historian Dave Haslam interviewed Jarvis Cocker in the neo-Gothic setting of Manchester Town Hall; Manchester Jazz Festival presented a haunting night of music dedicated to the American Civil Rights movement inside the People’s History Museum (the only national museum dedicated to telling the story of British democracy); ‘secret’ gigs for just twenty people at a time were held in creative studios in the city’s Northern Quarter; children went on a walking tour and ‘doodled’ the urban landscape they saw on see-through umbrellas – a neat subversion of Manchester’s reputation as the rainy city. These are the sorts of events that, rooted in the city’s museums and galleries, tell the stories of Manchester as much as sell its cultural assets; these are the sorts of real and uniquely Mancunian experiences that cultural consumers are looking for. While the Weekender is focused on potential visitors, it also brings benefits to local audiences. That authentic experience mentioned above can only come from a culture owned and articulated by the people who live in the city, and it is the role of the Weekender partner network – the cultural venues in particular

> CASE STUDY

– to ensure that the Weekender’s marketing and messages reach local audiences as much as the Creative Tourist-led campaign targets nonlocals. creativetourist.com, meanwhile, acts as a central portal for all listings and Weekender information, pulling content in from and pushing it back out to a marketing network that spans sectors and an entire city. As for its future, the Weekender continues to grow. Online visitors (to Creative Tourist, specifically for Weekender content) double year on year, with 45% of traffic coming from those based outside the North West. In 2012, audiences hailed from Florida, Berlin, London, Toronto, New York, Cardiff, Glasgow, Birmingham, Leeds, Halifax, Stoke, Leicester and Warwick. One couple even travelled

from Scotland with a carefully planned itinerary and their own bikes so that they could join a cycle tour. Ticketed events sold out, visitor satisfaction was high, and volunteers reckoned working on it was one of their best

ever such experiences. So this October – the 10th, to be precise – expect to see the start of another weekend-long celebration of the cultural life of a city that Creative Tourist is proud to call home.

Helen Palmer Creative Tourist e helen@creativetourist.com w creativetourist.com creativetouristconsults.com tw @creativetourist / @ctconsults

Susie Stubbs Creative Tourist e susie@creativetourist.com w creativetourist.com creativetouristconsults.com tw @creativetourist / @ctconsults JAM 51 > 15

Bringing our nation to life Jonathan Mountford of made Tourism Marketing on cultural tourism and its effect on Britain VisitBritain defines cultural tourism as: ‘Visits to enjoy visual and performing arts, museums, galleries, heritage attractions, public art and architecture, festivals, films and other cultural events.’ These visitors want to ‘enjoy exhibitions and performances, to sample local food and learn about local customs, to enjoy the atmosphere of a place and to learn something. They enjoy experiences that fire their imagination or offer a chance to connect with the past’. I agree with this mission statement but for me arts and culture underpin what it means to be British, how we see ourselves and how the world sees us. Our culture is our hallmark and it makes Britain distinctive in a globalised world. Cultural tourism is able to deliver things which few other sectors can. It brings our country to life and encourages people to visit our shores, it develops a sense of community and attracts visitors to disparate parts of our nation. It cultivates the creativity that underpins our wider industrial efforts. The arts are not just a visitor add-on, they are fundamental to our success as a nation and in an age of testing austerity we need to bank this consensus but also take note of the hard financial facts: • Arts and culture make up 0.4% of GDP, a significant return on the less than 0.1% of government spending invested in the sector, that’s a greater return on investment (ROI)

16 > JAM 51

than the health, wholesale and retail, and professional and business services sectors. • The arts and culture sector provides 0.45% of total UK employment and 0.48% of total employment in England alone. • At least £856 million per annum of spending by tourists visiting the UK can be attributed directly to arts and culture. Maria Miller’s first speech as Culture Secretary, seven months into the role, stressed that the economic impact argument was the one, the only one, to make to HM Treasury. So, as arts professionals we should give Miller more evidence, more stories, more ammunition to ‘fight our corner’ within government. Miller’s speech was met with swift and spirited responses, but to me it appears to be ushered in, belatedly, around two issues: the economic, and maybe more importantly, culture’s global pull internationally (the latter amplified in the recent launch of the new VisitBritain tourism strategy). Part of this strategy is to ensure Britain is packaged and sold widely by working with the travel trade in key markets. For those unaware, the travel trade is a complex mixture of commercial companies who usually act as an intermediary between the public and tourism products. Tourism products in the wider sense include visits to museums, galleries, theatre, opera and ballet. The travel trade comprises largely of travel agents, tour operators,

> FEATURE

coach operators and group travel companies. Although they usually demand discounts or commissions, the travel trade will sometimes pay extra for additional services such as behind-the-scenes tours and special talks. However, the travel trade is just one tiny part of the tourism industry. Tourism is a highly fragmented industry, with around 200,000 businesses competing to attract domestic and overseas visitors. With improved marketing, most cultural organisations could claim a bigger share of this lucrative industry. It is easy to refer glibly to ‘tourists’ as if they were an anonymous mass of people, but of course there are many different types of tourist. Each group, or segment, has different needs and motivations. For example, tourists may be international visitors from another country or a family who have just travelled a couple of hours to see their relatives and go out together. The latter are often referred to as VFR (visits to friends and relatives). It’s only in the last couple of years that there has been awareness in the wider cultural sector of just how valuable international and home tourism is – an awareness underlined recently via the newly signed memorandum of understanding between Arts Council England and VisitEngland. The three year arrangement will see the two organisations collaborating on a portfolio of projects as well as sharing research findings and seeking to improve skills in both sectors. A pot of £3 million will be made available from ACE Lottery funding in June and is intended to directly encourage local culture and tourism initiatives. This burgeoning interest in cultural tourism and the recognition of its potential to generate profile, new visitors and economic impact can only be a good thing. Miller said: ‘Our country is renowned around the world as a top cultural tourist destination with iconic heritage sites, museums and theatres. The industry has a strong role to play in our economic growth. It makes sense that our cultural and tourist industries join forces, as in many cases they are two sides of the same coin. This new partnership will help local organisations give both tourism and cultural sectors a boost.’ However, Ms. Miller, cultural tourism is not and can never be a quick fix. If you’re in the cultural tourism game, you’re in it for the long haul. It means that you need the sorts of partners who are able to set aside individual agendas to work collaboratively (and sometimes for years before the real results start rolling in). It’s not simply a new style of marketing, nor is it a case of saying the same thing but in a different way. Arts and cultural organisations have many audiences, many stakeholders, but also many stories to tell and much data to work with. But connecting to cultural tourism is about understanding the collective cultural offering of a destination, matching that offer to (and connecting with) the intertwined industries (of restauranteurs, accommodation providers, retail and so on) and most importantly making sure that it’s all packaged in a way that is meaningful to the consumer. Visitbritain.org offers practical advice on how this can be achieved plus market insights and statistics. JAM 51 > 17

The ultimate feel-good show comes to Blackpool Jonathan Mountford reports ... MAMMA MIA! is the ultimate feel-good musical. Set on a Greek island paradise, a story of love, friendship and identity is cleverly told through the timeless songs of ABBA. The first production of MAMMA MIA! the Musical opened fourteen years ago at the Prince Edward Theatre. It was just after the Easter weekend and I was working for Michael McCabe Associates. Everyone said it wasn’t a great time to open the show because people were away. But Soho came to a standstill – the traffic stopped, barriers were up, ABBA fans were in the street. Benny Anderson and Björn Ulvaeus, the men behind ABBA, had people running alongside their car 18 > JAM 51

like a presidential cavalcade sweeping down the streets. The day after the opening night party, which was done on a shoestring at a restaurant in Soho, I just remember everyone having a great feeling of relief. Nearly fifteen years on and this irresistible tale has since visited 74 cities in 35 countries around the world, and now the party will continue in one of Britain’s favourite holiday resorts at Blackpool’s famous Opera House. MAMMA MIA! is one of our biggest clients and I’m still responsible for the show’s Tourism Marketing. We are delighted to be working with JHI theatre marketing consultants, the Opera House and Visit Blackpool.

Blackpool is to host this West End show for ten weeks next summer – the first time. MAMMA MIA! will run from 20 June to 31 August 2014 at the Blackpool Opera House and it is incredibly important that we engage the tourist market. We have consciously put a competitive group rate in place and coach tour operators from throughout the UK have already put in their requests to sell tickets, which start from £30 for a group of more than ten people. Part of our Tourism Marketing strategy includes targeting international visitors. We have formed a strong partnership with United Airlines and we are using Blackpool’s

> CASE STUDY

Pictured: Members of the London production attending this summer’s press launch in Blackpool. Casting will be announced later in 2013.

‘This is a fantastic coup for Blackpool and one which we believe will help boost our ability in terms of attracting visitors, in particular those who wish to come and stay in the resort. It also represents a great opportunity to showcase a regenerated Blackpool to the rest of the UK’. rich heritage, as well as the fact that it is ‘the archetypal British seaside resort’ as a USP to target overseas tourists. For example the venue sits within the Winter Gardens which is a large entertainment complex in the town centre. It is surrounded by the world-famous piers, fortune tellers, public houses, trams, donkey rides, and of course fish and chip shops! It has twelve different venues, including a theatre, ballroom and conference facilities. Opened in 1878, it is a Grade II listed building, incorporating various elements built between 1875 and 1939. We are also playing on the fact that the Gardens’ owners claim that every British Prime Minister since World War II has addressed an audience at the venue – our American cousins love this type of cultural history. Our team is also engaging with Blackpool’s major attractions and landmarks including the Blackpool Tower, the Pleasure Beach, Zoo and the UK’s only surviving first-generation tramway. We have packages in place with all major UK tour operators such as Omega Travel and international packages with wholesalers such as Gold Medal. As Blackpool remains a major centre of tourism in England a partnership has been formed with VisitEngland – the government’s tourist board for England. At the recent Press Launch Cllr Graham Cain, Cabinet Member for Tourism and Culture said, ‘It is more than ten years since Blackpool last had a full summer season show of this quality. Over the last few years Blackpool has transformed dramatically and we have been able to show investors and visitors that the town has changed.’

Natalie Wyatt, Managing Director of Visit Blackpool, said, ‘This is a fantastic coup for Blackpool and one which we believe will help boost our ability in terms of attracting visitors, in particular those who wish to come and stay in the resort. It also represents a great opportunity to showcase a regenerated Blackpool to the rest of the UK’. Shifts in tastes, combined with opportunities for Brits to travel overseas, supplanted Blackpool’s status as a leading resort during the late 20th Century but Blackpool’s urban fabric and economy remains relatively and firmly rooted in the tourism sector. Entertainers who regularly play the town such as Ken Dodd and Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown are rightly or wrongly now firmly part of our cultural heritage. The town’s seafront continues to attract millions of visitors every year. And in 2014 there will be much more to Blackpool than just sandy beaches and donkey rides, times change, and with MAMMA MIA! comes a new breed of entertainment – the mega musical. So far our marketing mix is working, as advance sales to both individuals and groups are robust. Maybe your next year’s holiday should be a ‘stay-cation’ to Blackpool?

FOOTNOTE

The international tour of MAMMA MIA! is produced by Judy Craymer, Richard East and Björn Ulvaeus for Littlestar, in association with Universal, Stage Entertainment and NGM.

Jonathan Mountford Managing Director, made e Jonathan@made2010.com f Made-in-Newton-Street tw @MadeNewtonSt w made2010.com Jonathan Mountford is a member of the Tourism Society, is the Managing Director of award-winning marketing firm, made, sits on VisitBritain’s British Tourism Industry Group and co-Chairs the Americas Interest Group. He is also the UK Ambassador for the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association. Notes • VisitBritain is Britain’s national tourism agency, responsible for marketing Britain worldwide and developing Britain’s visitor economy. • VisitEngland is the national tourist board for England, responsible for marketing England to domestic and established overseas markets and for improving England’s tourism product. • Maria Miller heads the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) – existing to help make Britain the world’s most creative and exciting place to live, visit and do business. JAM 51 > 19

Developing cultural experiences – a how-to guide Karan Thompson guides us through the background and inception of the Tourism Toolkit for Ireland’s Cultural Experiences she created during 2012 for Fáilte Ireland – Ireland’s National Tourism Development agency

developed the Toolkit as one of the outputs of my role as Project Mentor for the Cultural Insights Project. This project commenced in 2011 and to date has helped to develop a cultural tourism focus with over 40 cultural providers (rural and urban) across Ireland. The Cultural Experiences Toolkit was designed as a resource for cultural organisations and individuals working in the cultural sector – e.g. those developing events and festivals, managing cultural attractions or cultural activities etc. Research carried out by Fáilte Ireland1 during 2011 highlighted an interest from visitors in experiencing Ireland’s traditional and contemporary culture, its unique cultural identity and distinct sense of place. It was also evident that special interest tourists were seeking out participation in new and deep cultural experiences including innovative arts programming, creativity and living culture, and that they were willing to travel to find these attractions and stay longer in their chosen destination, thus giving cultural organisations a compelling reason to attract the cultural visitor as a core audience. The Cultural Insights Project provided the opportunity for Fáilte Ireland to work closely with cultural providers to respond to this identified need from market segments actively choosing to visit Ireland. This work was carried out via bespoke interventions between each identified provider and a specialist cultural mentor, and opportunities for collective thinking and partnership development between providers. Learning from the Cultural Insights Project in 2011 identified that cultural organisations, in the main, focused their marketing efforts on engaging with their specialist audiences within their artistic or creative frame of reference, rather than taking a destination focus for their product/ experience. The Tourism Toolkit was designed to assist such organisations to: • Develop their understanding of the tourism landscape in Ireland and their own destination, 20 > JAM 51

> FEATURE

> examples of CASE STUDIES presented alongside templates and exercises in the toolkit

Where does my organisation fit with tourism? Theatre Royal Regional Theatre Co. Waterford Objectives • Increase awareness of the venue and its programme to local and regional audiences and the visitor to the region • Assess the impact from the incidental tourist to Waterford on the Theatre

• Increase audience attendance Results • Increased awareness of the venue and its programme for visitors • Increase in ticket sales • Identification of potential web development to reflect tourism

audience data collection and their needs • Identification of new ways to increase visitor numbers through online marketing

Case study: Communicating your message effectively Lewis Glucksman Gallery, University College, Co. Cork Objectives • Enhance communications channels for the visitor to Cork who would not consider the Gallery in their itinerary • Develop a sense of belonging within the Gallery for local people and the wider University

community to stimulate word of mouth • Increase visitor numbers to the Gallery

Results • Increase in attendance at events and to Gallery generally • Increase in pick up rate of information for Glucksman in other galleries • Increase in visits to website and posts on social media channels

Case study: Working in partnership in your destination National Craft Gallery and Butler Gallery, Co. Kilkenny Objective Both organisations realised that while tourist numbers to Kilkenny are strong, this was not reflected in the numbers coming through their doors. In many instances coach tours alight outside their respective premises to visit the Castle but fail to realise that either of the Galleries exist. Their challenge was to draw audience from those visiting Kilkenny and Kilkenny Castle in particular.

Approach Develop an invited audience event for tourism providers in the region. Sharing information on programmes and events combined with an exhibition of the work in each of the respective galleries and a talk by each Gallery Curator. Results The event helped raise awareness of both galleries and their location.

It also provided an opportunity to share information on programmes and events that would appeal to the tourist providers’ domestic and international visitors. It also facilitated the gathering of data to build targeted email communications with tourism providers post event and was effective in developing local partnerships with established tourism providers.

JAM 51 > 21

> FEATURE

• identify international and domestic audiences for their offer, • develop what they have to offer the visitor, • grow new audiences from tourism, and • develop collaborative working practices and partnerships within their destination to attract the cultural visitor. The approach used in the Toolkit is to provide the cultural provider with a practical guide and approach to developing a cultural tourism strategy, implementing it successfully and monitoring and evaluating its success over time. The information in the Toolkit provides a step-by-step approach to: • Understanding cultural tourism and how it can benefit the cultural business, • developing an understanding of the tourist visiting their region, • gaining insights into the most effective ways to engage with the cultural tourist, • data collection – key information to collect from the tourist, • developing a tourism message, • developing their experience for the visitor, • integrating what they have to offer into what is currently on offer in their region, • working in partnership with other cultural providers and those working in the tourism sector, • evaluating their success. The information is supported by exercises and templates which can be applied to individual organisations to help them to assess their current approach and develop new approaches to accessing the cultural tourist. Alongside the exercises are case studies which provide examples of best practice from cultural organisations who had taken part in the Cultural Insights Project, and who had implemented changes in their organisation from their project learning, to develop awareness of their offer and enhance their audiences from tourism. The case studies section of this feature provides an overview of a few of these studies. Their approach and outcomes can be accessed in full in the Tourism Toolkit. Since its development, the Toolkit has proved to be an effective tool for cultural organisations in assisting their cultural tourism development. In order to maximise the impact of the Toolkit and to assist in the development of cultural experiences in Ireland, I’ve also developed a series of Building Cultural Experiences Workshops on behalf of Fáilte Ireland as part of the Cultural Insights Project. These workshops enable cultural providers to come together to share their approach to cultural tourism development, create partnerships, build new experiences for visitors, and understand online and offline marketing channels for success and thus create opportunities to develop new audiences for their respective businesses.

FOOTNOTE

1. Fáilte Ireland Holiday-Maker Port Attitude Survey 2011, Millward Brown, Dublin, 2011

Karan Thompson Director, KTCL Project Mentor, Cultural Insights Project – Fáilte Ireland e karan@ktcl.ie w ktcl.ie Karan Thompson, (MA, H.Dip.Ed., Dip. Arts Admin., Dip.WCM, MII), is the author of the Tourism Toolkit for Ireland’s Cultural Experiences and is the Consultant Project Mentor for Fáilte Ireland’s Cultural Insights Project alongside the internal Fáilte Ireland destination development team. She is the Director of Karan Thompson Consulting Ltd (KTCL) a consultancy practice established in 2001 which provides assistance to a wide range of businesses across the arts, culture, creative and tourism sectors in Ireland and Europe. KTCL provides business planning, strategic marketing and communications to innovative product development, facilitation and mentoring to these clients. Previous roles as an arts manager and practitioner, Board member and Events Manager for Ireland’s National Concert Hall position Karan as a professional with 27 years of experience across the cultural, creative and tourism industries. This experience places her in the distinctive position of understanding the complexities of managing, developing and marketing businesses in these sectors to drive their creative potential onward development.

Tourism Toolkit for Ireland’s Cultural Experiences: http://issuu.com/designtactics/docs/fi-22203-12_culture_tourism_toolkit__issuu_?mode=embed&layout=http%3A%2F%2 Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Flight%2Flayout.xml&showFlipBtn=true 22 > JAM 51

> JUST A MINUTE

Just a minute

(

0 6

Get to know other AMA members in just six questions 10

What is your first memory of the arts? It’s always just been there really, in the background, as an accepted part of life. I can remember vividly being part of a crowd scene at the age of five years old in a production of The Elephant Man at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton (my mum was directing, so I didn’t really have a choice) and I think that’s where my love of theatre began. Even now, there’s nothing like the feeling I get when I step inside an auditorium, in the dark, waiting for it all to begin.

How did you get into arts marketing? I always knew that I wanted to work in theatre in some way, so wandered along to a careers talk one evening where I met consultant John Matthews. He told us about marketing in the arts and made it sound so glamorous and exciting! And the next thing I knew, I had a job with him at McCann Matthews Millman, sitting on the floor, stuffing envelopes and counting questionnaire returns (not quite the kind of glamour I had in mind). From there, it was a move into the marketing department at Cardiff’s New Theatre.

What attracted you to the arts sector? I don’t think there was ever an alternative to be honest. I grew up performing, playing instruments, going to museums and galleries throughout the holidays, so it was so much part of life that it just seemed a natural thing to do. And once you’re in, I think you get hooked on it so there’s no chance of escape. When people ask me what I do, I’m proud to say that my job is helping more people to get involved with cultural activity.

When and why did you join the AMA? John Matthews, my first boss, was heavily involved in establishing the AMA, and one of the first things I had to do there was work on the first ever AMA board elections. I sat on the floor, counting ballot papers, trying to get my head around single transferable vote (STV), and phoning around to speak to marketers all over the country to tell them they’d been nominated and would they be willing to stand? It was never in question that I wouldn’t be a member of the AMA, and from my first ever conference in Cambridge they’ve been there supporting me as my career develops.

What is your proudest moment? Aside from bringing my three amazing children into the world, and climbing a mountain in Borneo, it’s got to be establishing Audiences Wales. We only had eight weeks to merge three audience development agencies into one, create a new brand identity, establish strong relationships with our fourteen Local Authority funding partners and build strategic plans that would create strong foundations for the future of audience development in Wales. And we did it – we signed the legal documents at 9pm on the 5th April, just three hours before the deadline. And since then, the agency has gone on to make a real difference to cultural marketing across Wales, and I’m very proud that I was there at the start.

And what is your greatest indulgence? At the moment, with a five year old, a three year old and a one year old child, it’s sleep! But normally, it’s a trip to the opera. I take myself off to the Wales Millennium Centre, sit back, and lose myself for a few hours (or MANY hours if it’s Wagner) and forget the world. Lovely.

Joanna Davies Partner, Ceridwen e jmdavies@yahoo.com w ceridwengroup.co.uk JAM 51 > 23

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