Chair’s report 2010 Appendix 1 for AGM March 29th 2011
Counting our first Inaugural General Meeting this is our fifth AGM as we report on the fourth year of Brecon Beacons Tourism’s activity and achievements. I’m pleased to report on a year of significant progress. In my report last year I referred to the ambitions we set out in the first paper we produced for our inaugural Meeting. In that paper we expressed our concern at the lack of marketing of the Brecon Beacons and we outlined our aim for the area to be recognised as a destination in its own right. In 2010 we achieved that ambition, Visit Wales confirmed Brecon Beacons new ‘destination’ status.
This enabled Brecon Beacons Tourism to receive for the first time, core-funding to support its co-ordination work with the tourism trade, the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, Powys County Council, the eight other local authorities in the area and the three Regional Tourism Partnerships that cover the area led by Tourism Partnership Mid-Wales (TPMW).
At the start of the year, Brecon Beacons Tourism led an informal Tourism Marketing Co-ordination Group, which included the BBNPA, Powys, Monmouthshire & Carmarthen County Councils, TPMW and Capitol Regional Tourism ( CRT). The Group commissioned a new Tourism Marketing Strategy to set the direction and provide the framework to improve and strengthen future marketing of the Brecon Beacons. The strategy was completed in November and the key recommendations included:
• To appoint a PR person/agency to generate stories and push them out through traditional & on-line media and encourage travel writers to visit the Brecon Beacons.
• To develop an inspirational and comprehensive website for the Brecon Beacons area, with stimulating themes and links to commercial products.
• To Focus on Digital marketing: a digital marketing plan (covering. content development, social media, user-generated content, search engine optimisation, e-crm), needs to be developed and implemented
Visit Wales via TPMW with CRT and South West Wales Tourism Partnership (SWWTP) confirmed £25,000 to support the delivery of the Marketing Strategy recommendations. The informal Marketing Co-ordination Group was formally constituted as the ‘Brecon Beacons Marketing Co-ordination Group and BBT signed a contract to appoint and manage the PR/Digital Marketing person to undertake a programme of work on behalf of the Group. Alexandra Marr & Associate’s were appointed in November and hit the ground running. We would like to thank them for the successes they have had so far. Punch will report on the results already achieved in her report together with an update on the important work being done on developing one comprehensive website for the Brecon Beacons which will utilise the content of the both the Brecon Beacons Tourism’s and the National Park’s websites.
In October, Brecon Beacons Tourism’s commitment to ‘actively working together’ was recognised at the “National Tourism Awards for Wales’ when we were shortlisted for the Partnership Working Award
At the end of a momentous year, I must say a huge thank you to the people who have made it happen. To our architect and driving force, Punch Maughan, to Catherine Maggs for keeping our finances in order, to Julia Blazer who has joined us to give Punch much needed support and to Alison Crawshaw for her continued help and support.
And finally a big thank you to our funders Visit Wales, via the three Tourism Partnership Partnerships: Mid-Wales, Capitol Regional, and South West Wales, to the Brecon Beacons National Park’s Interreg Collabor8 project and to Powys County Council.
And last but not least to you our members, without your support, none of this would have been possible so a very big heartfelt thank you.
