Background & Introduction
Guildford with its unique geography, history and vibrant economy, has assets deserving of a co-ordinated destination marketing effort, and has the potential for contributing even more to the local econ-omy in the years to come. Though retail is substantially looked after by the now well-established Business Improvement District, Experience Guildford, its appeal is an inextricable part of the visitor offer-ing: Guildford is considered the best lux-ury-shopping destination outside London (Experian, August 2013), a fact reflect-ed in trend-bucking High Street footfall figures and low vacancy rates. As a County Town rather than a City, Guildford punches well above its weight in terms of profile and prestige, and can do more, not only in attracting outside visitors, but encouraging residents to benefit more from what the borough has to offer. With a history spanning more than a mil-lennium, Guildford has more than its fair share of historic buildings complement-ing an outstandcomplement-ing natural settcomplement-ing amid the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Proximity to the capital and its two largest airports, together with road and rail links (London being just 35 minutes away), have helped secure prosperity and popularity as a destination for visitors of all kinds.
The strength of Guildford as a place to do business plays a significant part in its attractiveness as a visitor destination, and the approach to consolidating and enhancing this offering is integral to the overall marketing plan.
What are we aiming to achieve?
Growing the value of the visitor economy is important to the sustainable growth of Guildford, and requires a mix of continued activity on established lines along with new initiatives to respond to developments in new technol-ogy and new emerging markets.
This Plan is a key part of our overall Visitor Strategy 2014-2020, and will detail the methods used to deliver that Strategy, turning aspirations and targets into reality. The Visitor Strategy sets sig-nificant targets, principally a 50% increase in overall visitor spend and related economic activity by 2020, from the current level of £330m in 2014 to £450m pa in 2020. These figures exclude the direct revenue of retail.
Achieving a coherent brand and a confident Guildford voice - where possible by working with media and other partners - can therefore benefit many sectors and contribute to a vibrant econo-my and an attractive place to live. As a strongly marketing-led local authority, our clients are our businesses; however, the beneficiaries of the visitor offer are above all our residents and visitors. Improving the proposition to visitors creates a virtuous circle of reputation, repeat visits, economic growth and the further enhancement of the environment for all stakeholders.
What needs to change?
An increasingly international market, strong business activity, a more mobile world population, the availability of information instantly online and competition from alterative destinations all add up to a new world of opportunity and challenge. Strong branding and intense concentration on quality and connectivity will be vital in order to maintain, and grow, Guildford’s strength as a destination.
What will drive the achievement of these plans?
Guildford has an outstanding mix of assets and attributes, from countryside to excellent retail, from transport networks to leisure, the arts and heritage. Already hosting an International Music Festi-val, Book Festival and Summer FestiFesti-val, Guildford will build further on the festival culture with offer-ings for all ages and interest groups, and will put talent and excitement at the forefront of marketing the town’s activities.
The award-winning Tourist Information Centre, already a beacon of excellence, a Visit England of-ficial partner and the only full-time TIC in Surrey, will continue to develop involvement in marketing the town, using a new, more dynamic website and up-to-date, mobile-responsive online ticket sales system. These improved technologies will be complemented by campaigns using social media to enhance the reach of activities being promoted.
The brand adopted for Guildford - Visit Guildford in the Heart of Surrey - is a reflection of the town’s central role in the life of Surrey rather than a strictly geographical reference.
Target markets: a brief analysis • Business Visitors
Owing to the proximity of Guildford to London and the major airports, business tourism is strong. Providers of conference/meeting space and accommodation are supported through the Venues Guide, promoting all the area has to offer. It is distributed in the South East to companies and event organisers, and nationwide to associations. The group has corporate membership of the Meetings Industry Association. Support is also available to providers or client companies to en-hance their business visit with trips to attractions.
• Visiting Friends and Family
Through the tourist information centre, local press and social media, events and attractions are promoted to encourage residents to explore at all times of year, but especially when friends and family are visiting. Destination Guides are distributed throughout the region in libraries, hotels and attractions.
• Group Travel (principally coach parties)
Through group travel press and group travel trade shows, Guildford and the surrounding area are promoted extensively to the day trip and short stay markets. Despite market challenges, coach travel remains a major contributor to the promotion of the town as a visitor attraction. Reg-ular familiarisation trips involving 25-35 hosted buyers are planned for alternate years.
• UK Tourists (Free Independent Travellers)
The destination guide and attractions guide are distributed nationwide through the Tourist Infor-mation Centre network, motorway services and railway stations and supported by social media to encourage visitors to stay in Guildford.
• UK Inbound Tourists (Free Independent Travellers)
Marketing takes place through e-newsletters, social media and targeted marketing channels so that Guildford is promoted in the key markets of Western Europe, China and USA. Guildford has achieved the China Ready Charter from Visit Britain. A slot is also taken monthly on an e-blast to 9000 USA Travel Agents.
Geographical areas and sectors affecting visitor activity: opportunities and challenges A coherent offering will see all of the area and all sectors working together, though their individual characteristics will create different marketing challenges.
Geography
• Town Centre: includes heritage and other GBC & private attractions, retail, food & drink and entertainment
• River: an attraction in itself, important heritage site and arterial link with the north and south of the borough
• Environs: includes heritage and other attractions and access to the outstanding Surrey countryside including the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
• Region: near to London and benefitting from association with the capital’s own appeal and contingent of visitors both UK and inbound, via London airports
Visitor attractions including heritage
The historic town centre, with its cobbled High Street, Guildhall, Guildford House, Abbot’s Hospital and more, is a stone’s throw from the castle and museum. An enhanced Tunsgate Square
development will see a better visual connection with the Castle, bringing a sense of Guildford’s ancient roots as a counterpoint to the 21st century retail offer. A previously elusive connection between old and new is in sight here.
Guildford has no dominant attraction: its appeal lies in the variety, quality and number of visitor destinations within and beyond the town centre, in both public and private hands. Properties such as the National Trust’s Hatchlands, Park, Loseley House, the Watts Gallery Trust and Guildford Cathedral (the most recently established Anglican cathedral in the country) illustrate the wide variety of options for visitors to the Borough, and complement the town centre highlights. This makes Guildford in some ways easier to market as a town with something for everyone, and yet more difficult to sell without a ‘halo’ attraction around which others can cluster. As a result, partnership working is more than usually important – of which more later in this document.
Retail, food & drink
Considered the UK’s best luxury shopping destination outside London, Guildford’s retail offering is second to none and a powerful draw for visitors from around the world as well as the UK and the local area. Supported by a varied and attractive food and drink offering, retail is the backbone of Guildford’s status as a destination. Driven by the wealth of retail and restaurant offerings, nearly all in the category of discretionary spending, this feature of the town also highlights one of its major re-strictions: infrastructure. Congestion, parking and signage issues require an imaginative response pending solutions that are more permanent.
Arts & Festivals
A vibrant theatre scene - including Yvonne Arnaud, Electric Theatre, GLive, Guildford Shakespeare Company and Guildford Fringe, together with numerous choral and orchestral offerings - means Guildford is seldom without cultural activity. The performance hub centred on the large, GBC-supported venues is strongly enhanced by the private sector, using many venues around the town and borough. GBC’s role in helping them thrive begins with ticket sales – an important service for those without the resources to operate their own system – and continues with promotion and networking (including social media).
The existing festival programme (including Summer, Book and International Music festivals) is a great driver of activity, often helping to use capacity at otherwise quiet times, and an encourage-ment to deliver or facilitate further themed programmes of events around the arts or the seasons.
Active Guildford: countryside, sport & leisure
With Spectrum Leisure Centre and the award-winning Lido (Water Leisure Venue of the Year at the UK Pool & Spa Awards 2015) sitting alongside Guildford’s wide open Stoke Park, and other facilities - both natural and built - around the borough, and the University’s Surrey Sports Park providing international-class facilities, Guildford has a vast amount to offer in terms of competitive and recreational sporting facilities.
Surrounding the town, however, is arguably its greatest leisure offering: the Surrey countryside, large parts of which are designated as Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Indeed the vast majority (89%) of the land in Guildford Borough is also designated Green Belt. The very thing that restricts expansion of the urban area gives Guildford another Unique Selling Point: accessible nature. Sustainably enhancing access to the countryside is the brief of organisations including the Surrey Countryside and Rural Economy Forum and the Surrey Hills Group, and complements the intended growth in visits to the attractions within the built environment. Walking and cycling are both extremely popular in the area, the latter partly inspired by the role of the borough in hosting Olympic and other cycle races.
Attractively close though the countryside is to the town, one of the challenges of marketing Guildford is that it offers such disparate attractions, requiring the presentation of varied activities as packages for inbound visitors, or as inspiring new offerings to residents and visiting friends and family.
Business & Education
Beyond the high profile retail presence, Guildford has traditionally attracted professional services and, increasingly over the last couple of decades, high tech, high growth sectors (with a particular hot spot at the renowned Surrey Research Park) with an emphasis on technology, research and intellectual property rather than manufacturing (though there is traditional industry too). Attracting and retaining businesses, particularly those able to relocate with little disruption to their activity, demands that Guildford offer a quality of life to compete with the best.
Guildford hosts a variety of educational establishments with excellent reputations: the University of Surrey (ranked 6th in the UK in the Guardian list in 2015); the University of Law; Guildford College and Merrist Wood Agricultural College; Guildford School of Acting; the Academy of Contemporary Music; the Performance Preparation Academy; high-ranking schools in both state and private sectors; new University Technical College due in 2017. Their combined contribution to Guildford’s economic vibrancy is incalculable yet obvious. Among the many distinctive qualities that saw Guildford top the Lambert Smith Hampton Vitality Index 2015 was its status as the most highly educated town or city outside London: a major hub for arts and music education as well as traditional academic excellence.
The business and education sectors bring students and staff into the area, relocating often for a fixed period. They feed direct demand into the visitor economy, also adding substantially to the number of visiting friends and family, who will often be more concentrated consumers than the long established locals. We recognise, however, that the draw of London means that less students visit the town and countryside than might be expected.
The business community also generates demand for conference and exhibition services, with incoming ‘business tourists’ staying for a short time and representing a target market for quality, accessible attractions.
Trends
Inbound visitor numbers to the UK in 2014 were at their highest recorded level (VisitBritain State of the Nation report January 2015) at nearly 35 million. The strongest element continues to be Europe, with 60% of the market, though minority regions have arguably the greatest scope to grow their presence. Guildford has seen a strengthening of spend per visitor and gradually longer stays, which represents a more sustainable increase in spend than a pure increase in numbers. In 2014 Guildford experienced an increase across the board in number of trips (Do-mestic and UK Inbound) and visitor spend – while England and the South East experienced declines in some areas.
In 2013 it was announced that the Chinese were now the people spending the most per person on tourism, and though the Chinese market is grow-ing from a low base, it is dogrow-ing so fast. Guildford’s response to this trend has been to achieve China Ready status from Visit Britain.
Inbound business tourism has recovered to close to pre-crash levels, and represents 24% of the market. As with domestic business tourism, this offers development opportunities, with delegates enjoying the attractions of the borough, and being inspired to return for purely leisure purposes with friends and family.
Marketing principles
The focus on economic growth means that marketing is aimed at increasing the take-up of the vis-itor offer within the Borough. Whilst growth in visvis-itor numbers is sought, of arguably more impor-tance is the extension of the time (and funds) spent by visitors, adding economic value in a more sustainable way. The strategy is consumer-led, emphasising the attractiveness of Guildford as a destination able to meet the varying needs of individuals and different groups. The main catego-ries of visitors can be summarised as:
• FIT: Free Independent Travellers • VFF: Visiting Friends & Family • GT: Group Travel
• BV: Business Visitors • TE: Temporary Employees • SS: Students
•
Marketing stages
• Identify target market and its particular requirements and propensities • Identify suitable services and attractions to meet these requirements • Encourage optimisation of services and attractions
• Encourage niche market understanding by service providers • Facilitate communication between service providers and visitors • Where relevant, provide booking services
Conclusion
Guildford’s inherent strengths - history, heritage, landscape, arts, attractions, retail, food and drink, sport, business and more – represent a perfect mix of reasons for people to visit, stay, explore and return repeatedly.
Existing practices, backed up by many years of combined experience in the co-ordination of Guildford’s visitor offering, combine to form a very effective destination marketing process. The new initiatives being rolled out will be a huge boost to the effectiveness of the already well developed network on which marketing Guildford depends. Critical to the success of this plan is targeted resourcing and long-term commitment.
Economic Development Team Guildford Borough Council Millmead House, Millmead Guildford, Surrey, GU2 4BB
www.guildford.gov.uk Tel: 01483 444315 [email protected]
