Council support for the delivery of a range of tourism activities will be considered by Isle of Wight councillors next week, but there is strong opposition growing amongst the business community.
Cabinet members are being recommended to approve the council’s provisional support for a further Destination Business Improvement District, known as the WightBID.
The original D-BID, which the authority supported in 2016, has been delivered over the past 5 years by Visit Isle of Wight (VIOW), the Island’s Destination Management Organisation of which the council is a board member. However, some locals say that the D-BID is unfair, is an extra tax on hard-working businesses and is simply not good value for money for levy payers.
The money is used for a range of activities – including paying 11 employees – but in particular marketing the Isle of Wight to potential mainland tourists and this has included London Underground and digital campaigns, TV advertising as well as advertorials in national newspapers and magazines. The turnover isn’t enough though as accounts show that Visit Isle of Wight had administrative expenses of nearly £700,000 in the year ending August 2020, with £922,312 of expenses in 2019. This exceeds the turnover of £613,929 (2020) and £893,082 (2019), but the company ended the year with retained earnings of £130,131 thanks to ‘grant income’. Just 2 years ago the company made a loss of £15,513.
The current D-BID arrangements will end later this month and a new proposition must be voted on by those tourism businesses which pay the annual levy. Businesses are legally forced to pay, with around 6% of levy payers taken to court over recent years for non-payment.
Visit Isle of Wight was thrown into disrepute when one of its own employees – and the wife of the former CEO – ended up in court after stealing more than £30,000 from the organisation’s funds, as previously reported by Island Echo.
Over the past few months, VIOW has been consulting with the local tourism industry and despite all of the above believes there is sufficient support for a new D-BID to be put in place. It has produced a prospectus and business plan covering the next 5 years – but one of the arguments against renewing the D-BID is that there have been broken promises from the 2016-2021 business plan.
One of the main controversies of the original D-BID is that large retail businesses such as supermarkets were excluded from compulsory payments at the 11th hour. According to some, this was over fears retail would vote no and scupper the entire plan.
Subject to Cabinet approval, the council will manage the ballot of businesses required by the regulations and collect the levy should the industry support it. The Cabinet will meet next Thursday (9th September).
A website called ‘Against BID’ has set up a dedicated WightBID page ahead of the ballot – https://www.againstbid.org/wight-bid.
Put the money towards helping people who live here, and not the damn tourists, this is cash down the drain as they will come anyway. What with this crackpot idea and the floating bridge, city status for Newport, what’s the hell will be next. I know let’s declare ourselves a separate country.
The island is a tourist destination. Don’t like move. Many businesses depend on the holiday trade.
Once upon a time the Island was roughly divided between Agriculture and Tourism. We need investment in producing our own food, now that we are out of the EU, also in our failing health care.
The tourists will keep coming deal or no deal, at least that is until we turn from the Garden Isle into the Concrete Isle.
The Isle Of Wight a separate country, now there’s a thought. Trouble is the council and the tourist board are on a separate planet
The new listening council strikes again. Not listening to business now it seems.
“large retail businesses such as supermarkets were excluded from compulsory payments at the 11th hour. According to some, this was over fears retail would vote no and scupper the entire plan.”
Of course they would, why would they want pay… also they have much deeper pockets for legal action than any of the other members. So if told to pay by WightBid they would let it go to court, costing WightBid a fortune to probably lose. And scupper the process anyway.