Visit Isle of Wight will remain the official tourism authority for the Isle of Wight for the next 5 years after winning a recent ballot with a majority of just 5.9%.
The results of the ballot, released today (Friday) by Civica Election Services who conducted the independent ballot on behalf of the Isle of Wight Council, have revealed that only 36.8% of eligible businesses voted. Of that 36.8%, just 55.9% voted ‘Yes’ – indicating that there really wasn’t much in it.
Just 578 valid votes were cast (plus 9 rejections), with 323 voting in favour of the DBID extension. The total aggregate rateable value of those in favour was £10,272,090. Those who voted against Visit Isle of Wight had a total aggregate rateable value of £4,061,600, suggesting that it was larger businesses who predominately voted in favour of the DBID.
As previously reported by Island Echo, many businesses have been expressing their disgruntlement at Visit Isle of Wight’s performance over the previous term. A group – Against BID – had been set up to raise awareness of the situation, with local spokesperson Lyn Blackledge suggesting that some businesses had not received a ballot paper.
The Yes vote means that Visit Isle of Wight will be able to continue its work to promote the Island as a destination, with contributions totalling nearly £3million over the next 5 years, ensuring the Isle of Wight holds its own against tourism destinations in this country and beyond. Around £250,000 a year is spent on salaries alone, however.
Speaking of the successful vote, Visit Isle of Wight Chair Ian Griffiths said he was pleased to see that businesses saw the importance and value of working together to ensure the Isle of Wight maintained its high standing in the ‘hearts and minds of potential visitors’:
“We are over the moon that businesses recognise and appreciate the work that Visit Isle of Wight has carried out on their behalf over the last 5 years. By working with local businesses, we have demonstrated that together we are stronger, and we look forward to developing closer ties with even more of the Island’s hard-working tourism-based firms.
“This yes vote is confirmation that work of Visit Isle of Wight is valued, however, we will not be resting on our laurels. We have been given a clear mandate to continue and we are already redoubling efforts to develop the work further, ensuring that the Island can continue to hold its place in the hearts and minds of potential visitors”.
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A series of themes, including attracting visitors for life, working together and sustainability will be developed, focusing on accessibility tourism, promoting the Island as a day visitor destination, and advocating sustainable travel.
Ian Griffiths says that the stamp of approval from Island business owners means that the team will continue to work hard on behalf of the tourism industry here:
“Throughout this BID process, Visit Isle of Wight has not been distracted by naysayers and has continued to perform its core task of encouraging visitors. The recent Isle of Wight Walking Festival, which is managed by Visit Isle of Wight, has been hailed a great success and we are now looking at calls to increase its presence to two events next year.
“Now, with the support of businesses and by working together even more closely, we will continue to ensure the Isle of Wight benefits from the BID process. Following comments from local businesses, we will also be looking at how we can extend the success of the BID to include businesses in the retail sector and develop even further the incredible offer that the Island has – not just to visitors but to everyone living here”.
Councillor Julie Jones-Evans, cabinet member for tourism, has said:
“This result will give reassurance to our vital tourism industry that the Isle of Wight will continue to be marketed as a visitor destination, especially important during this resurgence in “staycations”. We must remember we are in competition with other visitor destinations so it’s crucial we have a visible and vibrant presence. A comprehensive business plan has ‘been given the seal of approval with this result and we look forward to seeing this being rolled out over the next 5 years and seeing our number of visitors increase”.
Terrible news for small businesses- they only have a small amount to spend on advertising and if they don’t pay the d- bid fee they get the bailiffs in. Literally have you over a barrel- they win either way. For some unknown reason the d-bid people can say who the businesses are and how much they have to pay. Very strange!
If you take off the 41 council votes – it is hardly a resounding success is it? So many of these businesses have never heard or seen from team Visit Isle of Wight – they only get the bill and in some cases, some of the businesses got a summons and that was the first they knew that they were part of the process. No wonder some business owners have referred to them as the mafia. Team VIOW told me they don’t have time to go and see the business owners they are forcing to pay. There is a divide because they need some yes votes – but work on lack of information and transparency so people are not aware of what is going on until it is too late.
It really is bad Lyn, if they are getting nearly £3million over the next 5 years but wages alone are £250k a year x 5 – so £1.25 million it doesn’t leave that much for the product to be made and distributed. It ok for the big firms they can lose the money somewhere but small businesses haven’t got it to lose. What with Airbnb , travel lodge ,premier inn , pop up camp sites – it’s no wonder the b and bs and guest accommodations are closing and being made into flats or being pulled down and made into non affordable housing.
most airbnb’s were still taking people during the lockdown, you only had to go on airbnb, you could still book. Even heard owners bragging about letting people stay.
I’m in touch with so many of the levy payers despite team VIOW & the consultant trying to stop me. The consultant wrote the government legislation which made it nigh on impossible to get the voters list however, I and my team were made of sterner stuff and sat at county hall for 22 hours collectively (under the watchful eye of a member of staff to make sure we didn’t photograph the list).We did manage to copy down a major part of the 1575 potential businesses. I would have been allowed to get the list if I could get 73 levy payers (5%) to agree – in order to do that I had to have access to the list to know who all the levy payers were. So many of those I talked to had never had a visit or phone call from team VIOW & the team told me themselves they don’t have time to talk to those who are being forced to pay this money. Many call them the mafia – Team VIOW had no answer when I asked them if they liked that? Many levy payers didn’t get the business plan or the brochure with the survey in – no wonder only 130 surveys were returned and the councillor for tourism pushed this through saying they had feedback from all levy payers.- an economy of the truth. I asked lots of questions on behalf of the poor pandemic struck business owners who were on their knees.Very few had discount despite the pandemic – still had to pay the levy. I was clearly an irritation to team VIOW – they banned me from videoing to help business owners & they removed me from zoom calls, informing On the Wight that I was going to be disruptive – if asking questions on behalf of levy payers is considered as disruptive then that is what I was going to do. In all my years of teaching, I never came across that definition of disruptive. It seems Ian Griffiths’, (chair of VIOW ) best line of defence was attack. Very juvenile & very unprofessional. Very sad to see that in order to win, on the instructions of the highly paid consultant, Mo Aswat, team VIOW lacked transparency, were unhelpful to levy payers who didn’t have voting papers and tried to silence their representative. Many did not have ballot papers and many didn’t even know they were part of the process. There were yes voters – they couldn’t have won without but as Darren so rightly reported, it is the big businesses and those in the more monied area of the island (west wight) that were favourited. A yes vote lead by a £50,000 + consultant – a no vote lead by a 71-year-old grandmother with a passion for transparency and a level playing field and a few free cups of coffee from our wonderful but very unfairly levied businesses. Even sadder, Mo Aswat is doing this to business owners all around the country.
Bigger margin than the Brexit vote …
Some businesses didn’t have ballot papers – how can that be fair?
Oh well another 5 years of dodgy deals then and running all over the locals by telling us how important the tourist industry is. Looks like the vote was biased so they scraped through it. The island mafia I feel.
The levy payers are referring to Team VIOW as the mafia –
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08138988/officers did you get this link Lyn?
The iow gravy train has just pulled out of the station
60% didn’t vote !
Or was it a case of 60% that could vote didn’t get a voting slip?
Stop dumping sewage in the Sea, think of the climate
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08138988/officers
visit isle of wight directors in the above link…
couldn’t help but notice that isle of wight businesses are forced to pay, against their will and some of this money must go to the following directors as salaries….
Stuart James – Wightlink marketing and innovation director.
Neil Chapman – Hovertravel MD
Lee Hudson – Red Funnel Pension Trustee
Rachel Randall – HTP College
guess it is ok to have to pay the ferry companies/a college to market the isle of wight, which they do anyhow on a daily basis through their own marketing departments.
Good find isle of wighter. I hope that link stays there too.