In Brief
A Destination Management Plan is an integrated strategy supporting sustainable tourism within a locality. On behalf of the Herefordshire Sustainable Food and Tourism Partnership (HSFTP), the Foundation secured funding for the development of Herefordshire's rural Destination Management Plan.
Herefordshire Destination Business Improvement District (BID)
Mosaic Partnership was commissioned to carry out a feasibility study into whether a Destination BID would be appropriate for Herefordshire. A Business Improvement District is a mechanism by which businesses collectively decide what improvements they wish to make to their business environment beyond that provided by public services, how they are going to manage and deliver those and how much they are prepared to pay for it. This goes into a full and detailed business plan. An independent month long postal vote is carried out and if the majority vote yes, both by number and rateable value, then a BID comes into being . BIDs last for up to five years and are used in City Centres, Business Parks, Industrial Estates and Tourism & Visitor Destinations.
The Feasibility Study is the first of a 3 phase process (the other two are the Development & Campaign Phase) and determines whether there is an appetite to undertake a full BID development, which normally takes about 12 months to complete.
During the Feasibility Study, Mosaic undertook:
- A review of existing partnerships, projects and plans to see whether there was opportunity for a BID.
- An analysis of the business rates data to determine which business might contribute, their rateable values and, therefore, potentially how much money could be raised by a BID
- Business engagement was undertaken through surveys, 1 to 1 meetings, sector based focus groups and presentations. .
The feasibility report was published in September 2019. A copy of the report can be found in the "Reports" quicklinks at the bottom of the home page
Project Description
Areas that have an integrated tourism Destination Management Plan (DMP) are able to maximise the economic potential of their tourism economy. Tourism is important locally, estimated to be worth almost half a billion pounds to Herefordshire's economy and supporting 9% of the county's employment. The latest published data for Herefordshire indicates there are more than 5 million visitors per year, though over 80% of these were day visitors only, rather than staying overnight.
There is significant scope to grow the tourism economy, by encouraging people to stay longer and by attracting more visitors. Herefordshire lacked a contemporary Destination Management Plan (DMP) and writing a county-wide DMP was deemed a priority by the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership (MLEP). Funding to support this was allocated under the Growth Programme of the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE). Brightspace, on behalf of Herefordshire's Sustainable Food and Tourism Partnership, submitted a successful proposal.
You can download the Destination Plan for Rural Herefordshire documents below:
Our Role
Brightspace:
- Convened the Herefordshire Sustainable Food and Tourism Partnership, which provides strategic oversight for the local tourism economy. The Partnership comprises local tourism associations, Visit Herefordshire, independent consultants and strategically important organisations such as Herefordshire Council, the Duchy of Cornwall and the National Farmers Union.
- Wrote and submitted a successful bid to the Growth Programme.
- Became the Accountable Body (ie. legally responsible) for producing the Destination Plan.
- Wrote the tendering specifications for the consultants (Jenny Beard, Cathy Meredith) who were appointed after a competitive tendering process.
- Provided administrative support to the project.
After publication, Brightspace will continue to play a major role in the implementation of the plan through its contribution to HSFTP.
Visit Herefordshire and Herefordshire Council have collaborated to write a separate Destination Management Plan (DMP) for Hereford City. You can view this document below.
The DMP for Hereford City and the DMP for Rural Herefordshire are also available below as a combined document.
