Food, sustainability, gateways, and Dickens! – our emerging tourism priorities
Visit Kent recently refreshed the membership of the Kent 2012 Tourism Sectoral Task Group, and through this new group, and the context of moving from Phase 1 of the Kent Strategy for the 2012 Games into Phase 2, it reviewed existing priotities, and those that have emerged over the past two years.
The ‘dressing’ of Gateways in Kent was felt to be a new and immediate priority within the 2012 context, not just in terms of continuing to seek London 2012 branding for key transport hubs for the Games – namely Ebbsfleet, Dover and Ashford – but to ensure that across our nine year tourism window, first impressions count! Delivering on the importance of Gateways will also be tackled through visitor information and expanding the Greeters programme at our Gateways.
Food, one of the 22 strands of the official Cultural Olympiad, and Kent’s excellent reputation for home grown produce were also felt as being underplayed so far, as we look to achieve our target of a 2% growth in the tourism economy in Kent off the back of the Games.
And Dickens? Well, with 2012 being the bicentenary of Dickens’ birth, it would be rude not to! Kent and Medway Councils are exploring in partnership with Portsmouth how best to maximise the Dickens effect – tying it in with the Cultural Olympiad’s new literature ‘programme’, Kent’s growing interest in Cultural Tourism (a sector growing by 15% each year), and the tourism influx we expect over the next nine years.
For more information contact simon.curtis@medway.gov.uk