Attendees: Punch Maughan (Brecon Beacons Tourism), Richard Tyler (BBNPA), Pat & Jim Gammon (Hay TIB & Paddles & Pedals), G Pugh (Hay TIB), John Evans (Chamber of Commerce), Peter Lloyd (Hay Town Council), Thelma Ballanie-Phillips (Hay TIB), Anna Heywood & Luke Skinner (Drover Holidays), Lisa Marie Badham (Wye Local), Lyn Parrington (Davlyn B & B), John Price (Courtway, Clyro), Jesse Ingham, Rhodri Jones & Peter Florence (Hay Festival), Amy Mackintosh (The Swan at Hay), Kathryn Mackintosh (The Bull’s Head, Craswall), Margaret Wesley (York House B & B), Clare Purcell (The Globe) Athene English (The Great English Outdoors).

Apologies – Derek & Anne (Addyman Books), Annabel Crook, Melanie Prince (Poetry Bookshop), Julie Jones (Middlewood)

Brecon Beacons Tourism following a commitment at a meeting in April 2008 to take actions from the points raised had called the meeting

Matters discussed

Hay Tourist Information Bureau

•    The centre is managed and run by a private company. There is involvement with people from the chamber of commerce and the town council

•    The centre and staff are funded from revenue gained from advertising in the town guide. 25,000 guides are printed

•    Accommodation who do not buy into the guide have the opportunity for a lesser rate of being promoted on a listing displayed in the window.

•    The bureau has an arrangement with Giles who runs the town website about listing those that have bought into the guide

•    The TIB do refer visitors to places if specifically asked who do not pay for marketing in the guide.

•    The Bureau does not collate or send out information to advertisers / the town about visitor numbers / feedback.

•    There is an annual mailing re the AGM & when renewal is due for advertising.

•    The Bureau does contact new businesses if they hear of them

•    The radius of engagement is about 15 miles around the town

•    Disappointing levels of attendance at the AGM which is when businesses could offer feedback

•    Discussion around affiliate membership

Hay Guide observations

•    Photos could be made more appealing / design more current

•    Would it be useful to have a separate map – less guides and then additional map?

•    There is already a bookshop map

www.hay-on-wye.co.uk

The website is owned and managed by Giles Morgan of Pixelshifters who has an arrangement with Hay TIB to list all businesses who advertise in their Hay guide. Businesses have the opportunity to have an enhanced entry on the site if they want it.

•    The site has been updated since the April 08 meeting, operates off a database and now searches in a different way.

•    Observations were made that it could still have more photographs / stories / reasons to come and be more inspirational about the Hay offer.

•    Both the Bureau representatives and individual businesses agreed that Pixelshifters were hard to get hold of and often slow to respond to requests re changes.

www.wyelocal.co.uk

This website has recently been established by Lisa Marie Badham and seeks to be a resource for the community and visitors. Lisa Marie is interested in discussing the role of this website as a visitor tool. It currently has an accommodation section with reviews and businesses can manage their own listings

Other website observations

More reference / inclusion of the festival

Blogs / articles

First impressions important

Minimum amount of clicks

More stories / town of books but also much more – needs all year hooks to bring people in

The Festival

•    The town feels they would like to know more about what the festival does in the back ground and what it supports locally

•    The TIB would welcome weekly email updates leading up to the event & a daily one re operational issues during the event or access to a web site where they could check

•    The map in the programme needs updating

•    The festival does have a lot of feedback from their visitors – accommodation premiums not helpful and this impacts on further spend in the town, the food offer has improved over the years, the festival could incorporate other questions in the future

•    The festival is going to be supporting the autumn Hay on Fire event which is very much a community event but attracts people from further afield too

•    The festival is looking at taking on Brecon Jazz which could improve connections between the two towns and gives more events to the year

Tools that could help

•    Visitor survey – the BBNPA have run visitor surveys in other towns (Brecon, Talgarth, Crickhowell) and could do so in Hay – there would be no cost to the town

•    Powys are running a scheme – ‘Communities Welcome’ that could help the town analyse their profile to visitors

Other general observations

Many of the retailers had not been asked to the meeting & should have been

Should always aim for 100% in terms of booking & quality

TIB could be more commercial, have a look at the Cric model

Lack of community centre regrettable although advent of the Globe is filling that gap to some extent

Actions

Follow up meeting to be held at 5pm 24th February – publicised as an open tourism meeting. Article to go in Wye Local immediately.

Letters to be devised by TIB and mailed out – postage will be covered by BBT. Letter to go to TIB members and non members

Posters will be put up in the town

Businesses will be visited to explain about the meeting

Meeting to be chaired by Kathryn Mackintosh of Bulls Head Craswall

The BBNP tourism team will be represented and Powys / Herefordshire also invited

There will be an agenda drawn up following discussion over the next couple of weeks.

If you have any thoughts on the above 'Minutes', why not share them in the on-line forum.