Decision details

The Director of Community Services submitted a report outlining the role of Marketing Lancashire in relation to the Council’s tourism work.

Marketing Lancashire is a destination management organisation (DMO) that promotes Lancashire as a destination and a place for visitors, occupiers, developers, investors and businesses as well as providing PR, digital marketing and events function for Lancashire LEP. Their funding is received from business and local authority subscriptions, and from central government.

Committee were informed that the government had recently announced an independent review to assess how DMOs across England are funded and structured and how they perform their roles. The outcome of the review would be reported to the DCMS Secretary of State and recommendations will be made. The Council’s Tourism Officer had been involved in the national consultation.

The Council has supported the work of Marketing Lancashire for several years with a subscription of £5,000pa with a service level agreement in place. However, Marketing Lancashire had recently dispensed with the agreement which meant there were now limited ways in which the organisation remained accountable in terms of value for money.

Officers recommended to committee that to ensure the Council gets value for money, new conditions for the delivery of service be negotiated with Marketing Lancashire addressing areas of current concern around tourism and economic development strategy, the identity of Ribble Valley, communication, collaboration on social media and the lack of involvement in marketing campaigns.

RESOLVED THAT COMMITTEE:

Delegate to the Director of Community Services in consultation with the Chair and Vice of committee to draft new conditions for the delivery of service and negotiate with Marketing Lancashire to establish a better working relationship which ensures value for money and effective delivery of co-ordinated tourism and economic development strategy.