The annual Visit Isle of Wight Tourism Conference gets underway next Wednesday (20th November).
Hosted at Parkdean Resort’s Lower Hyde Holiday Park in Shanklin, this year’s conference will have dual themes around the importance of digital impact and accessibility in tourism.
The morning session will see invited speakers from differing sectors. Speakers this year include the Chair of Tourism South East Mark Smith; Andrew van der Feltz, Senior Business Development Director at Expedia; Chris Veitch, Government Disability Champion for the tourism sector; John Heather from NFU Mutual; Ian Griffiths, Chair of the Board of Directors at Visit Isle of Wight and Will Myles, Managing Director at Visit Isle of Wight.
There will be a compered Q&A session after each session of speakers to allow delegates ask more detailed questions from the experts.
The afternoon sees specialist workshops around accessibility, digital, and the Visit Isle of Wight marketing plan for 2020, allowing delegates to further explore how they could help increase visitor traffic to the UK’s number one holiday island.
Will Myles, Managing Director at Visit Isle of Wight said:
‘The tourism conference is a benefit for the Wight BID levy payers. We host it every year and it allows them the opportunity to network amongst themselves, also to hear from industry experts and to get that expert knowledge and that expert advice that sometimes might help them with their own businesses going forward”.
Speaking of the themes to this year’s conference, Will said:
“Digital marketing is the way forward, that’s where people get the best return on investment. So for people with small budgets, for example, or even large budgets, the digital marketing space is where you need to be and where you need to get the best return on your investment.
“Accessibility is worth £12 billion pounds in the UK tourism sector and yes, we want a piece of that, but equally it’s about giving people the opportunity to get away on holiday to enjoy themselves.
“It’s a key message coming out from Visit England to develop that. It’s a key message coming out from government, part of their industrial strategy with the tourism sector deal relates to accessibility, and we want to be part of that and we want to give people who perhaps may feel as though they can’t go away on holiday, that the Island’s for them and we want to give them the opportunity to come and enjoy themselves”.
A select number of exhibitors will also be at the conference, including Portsmouth University, Expedia, cross Solent transport operators, EV Connections who specialise in providing electric car charging points across the Isle of Wight and Isle Access, the local accessibility champions.
Adding to the Visit Isle of Wight’s commitment to sustainable travel, Southern Vectis are offering delegates the opportunity to use the bus network for free on the day, if they have signed up for the conference.
The conference invite is open only to Wight BID levy payers and voluntary contributors to the Wight BID, allowing them free access to information geared to helping them succeed in an increasingly competitive environment.
For more information about the conference visit https://visitwightpro.com/2019/10/16/visit-isle-of-wight-tourism-conference-2019/.
Just another ‘jolly’ !!! How do they measure the ‘success’ of these conferences?
yes – financed by rinsing hard working business for this wightbid levy – or extortion racket as it would be better known, to ensure that unemployed experts can sit around a table, talk shite and get paid – all the while, those actually running the businesses are hard at work, trying to recoup the unnecessary levy stolen from them, under the threat of sanctions via some trumped up rules.