Locum Destination Review - Issue 10

The journal of record for the global destination industry

Editorial

This issue of Locum Destination Review challenges conventional attitudes to culture. Many in the destination industry see culture as ‘not for me’, ‘fluffy’, ‘someone else’s businesses’. How misguided. All our lives are touched by cultural impacts: from education of the next generation to the economics of regeneration.

We open by speaking to Nicholas Hytner, the incoming director of the National Theatre. He reveals his plans for this great bastion of English culture, including a new balance between classic and contemporary theatre, and the National’s first ever staging of Henry V, with the black actor Adrian Lester in the lead role. Hytner explains why finding the right shows and leading from the front will remain as focal to him as it was to his great personal inspiration, Diaghilev. He also outlines his views on the wider social role of theatre, and discusses the economics behind such an institution.

We delve deeper into the economics of culture with a series of pieces exploring how cultural destinations are being used to drive regeneration and mixed-use schemes in the UK and overseas, and how their economic impact is measured.

Who is gaining from the trend to short breaks and, often, cultural tourism? The UK’s regional airports, which have enjoyed spectacular growth in recent years, and are emerging as genuine challengers to some of the bigger airports, largely thanks to the popularity of low-cost air travel. We meet Mike Luddy, the new marketing director of Newcastle International Airport, fresh from a successful period at Bristol International Airport, which he helped to transform into one of the country’s most successful regional operations. Mike identifies the key lessons of airport retail, marketing and product development that he learned during his time with BAA, at London Gatwick, and how they have informed his work with Bristol and Newcastle. We also trace the evolution of easyJet, soon to become Europe’s largest budget carrier, when its merger with Go is finalised early next year. And we look at how Liverpool John Lennon airport has been winning new friends through its recent expansion and imaginative rebranding: a cultural statement to be admired.

Few destinations depend more on cultural tourism than England, and following much speculation, it has been announced that the British Tourist Authority is to gain the remit for promoting England to the domestic British market. The other big strategic change in English tourism is that the funding for Regional Tourist Boards currently channelled through DCMS will in future be distributed via the Regional Development Agencies. Phil Reddy of the NWDA describes the process of vision-forming that has been led by his organisation in order to inform a new long-term tourism strategy for England’s Northwest region.

As the BTA looks to recruit a new head of marketing, it is encouraging to know that the organisation’s new chief executive, Tom Knox Wright, is committed to a strong branding philosophy: ‘It’s not about straplines, but purely understanding the brands we have’ (Marketing, 7 November). While the BTA plans ahead, Locum’s Sue Warren, the former chief executive of The New Zealand Way, offers an insight into how New Zealand has used brand thinking as the basis for both tourism and trade marketing, wrapped into a single strategy.

We also catch up with the remaining six contenders in the 2008 European Capital of Culture competition, bringing you their initial reactions to shortlisting. Meanwhile, another group of winners met in Dubrovnik this September, for the first of what many hope may become an annual event: Best in Heritage. This was no awards ceremony but rather a forum for the sharing of best practice among destination makers from around the world. We bring you full coverage of the event, and of the remarkable renaissance taking place in Dubrovnik, which suffered tremendous damage to its own cultural heritage during its bombardment. The restoration of the city’s historic buildings has been greatly assisted by the acclaimed photography of Damir Fabijanic. His visual documentation of the city before the bombs fell has provided a unique template for restoration. It seems extraordinary that the likes of the Imperial War Museum should not yet have seized the opportunity to exhibit this body of work. Perhaps in the New Year it may choose to do so.

We hope that this coverage of cultural impacts, will stimulate at least some reappraisal. And that our brand of destination thinking proves helpful in your daily round, well in what we trust will be a prosperous New Year for all our readers.

Owen Burdekin
Editor