Thursday, June 23, 2005

Marketing Purbeck

Purbeck District Council has advertised for a Tourism Officer to cover maternity leave. The alarming thing is that the maximimum salary is £24,000. Tourism is by far the largest source of employment in Purbeck and the District's prosperity depends on aiming its marketing at attracting visitors who will spend the maximum amount of money while inflicting the least harm on the environment. As an industry one of tourism's main features is that it consists of a large number of small businesses with no collective organisation. It therefore falls to the District Council to market it. If it was a single private business it would have a properly funded marketing function with salary levels capable of attracting experienced professionals and not be an adjunct of the planning department. I know the council cannot look to the tax payers for more but does anyone have any ideas about how marketing could be funded. Personaly I am drawn to the French approach of having a small tourist tax which has to be spent on tourist facilities and supporting the industry.

Posted by Keith Roker to swanage view at 6/23/2005 10:21:21 AM

1 comment:

Postman2 said...

Interesting stuff Keith, a few points:
#The brief of the Tourism Officer in Blackpool is "to promote an environment in which the private sector can flourish". Purbeck leans toward the paternalistic approach in my opinion. That doesn’t mean we need to be anything like Blackpool. It just means we must be market orientated, whichever market we go for. Throwing mud against a wall isn’t an option any more.
#Swanage always had a T.O. generally a graduate straight out of uni. Then the same job turned into caravan site manager.
#I.M.H.O. the job must be independent, so this guy can lobby against local gov't policy when necessary.