What is the South West Wales Tourism Partnership?

South West Wales Tourism Partnership (SWWTP) is the Regional Tourism Partnership (RTP) serving South West Wales. The Wales Tourist Board, now Visit Wales, and part of the Welsh Assembly Government initiated the formation of 4 RTPs across Wales to receive devolved resources and responsibilities for many aspects of tourism marketing and development. The partners in SWWTP are all the local authorities and a broad spread of tourism, hospitality and leisure industry representatives from across the Region. SWWTP acts as the lead body supporting tourism in South West Wales.

Key elements within the Partnership’s aims include: "….the need to maximise potential and eliminate wasteful competition for the ultimate benefit of the consumer and the trade’ and ‘to encourage a greater integration of public and private sector resources by nurturing a distinct regional bias in decision making, reflective of the regional strategy / business plan’. The SWWTP drives forward the SWW Regional Tourism Strategy, 'Open All Year'.

'Open All Year''s is now in place. SWWTP will oversee its development, implementation and monitoring is facilitated by SWWTP through coordination of the activities of individual partners and other key stake holders. The SWWTP undertakes specific tourism marketing and product development activities which help deliver the strategic objectives.

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Action Plans were devised and are in daily use in order to represent the key regional level activities that need to be programmed. There are 5 Action Plans:

• Improving Business Practice and Performance
• Refocusing Marketing
• Working Together Effectively
• Creating a year round quality experience
• Developing and sustaining infrastructure, environment and cultural resources

Each set out key actions, potential partners, a suggested monitoring agency, where relevant, the likely time scale and status / priority level.

SWWTP is a "not-for -profit" Company Limited by Guarantee. Every 3 years elections open to all with an interest in tourism will be held across the region to choose one-third of the industry representatives. Local Authorities will nominate their representatives. The Directors will invite WTB and other key partners to attend their meetings. The Board is relatively small – 12 Directors plus the Regional Strategy Director – but the constitution of SWWTP allows for the formation of sub-groups to concentrate on particular aspects of the work – a demonstration of SWWTP’s commitment to partnership working.

The SWWTP works within strict running cost limits and so its core staff is limited to 3.5 (Director, Project Manager, Office Manager and Admin Officer (pt time)). The SWWTP will act as an enabling and commissioning body, working through others to deliver its objectives.

Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) VIA Visit Wales provides the core funding for SWWTP which together with other identified resources will give a budget of over £1m. Partnership working with tourism businesses, government agencies, local authorities and other stake holders will add a significantly to this figure.

All activity is closely monitored. SWWTP activity is regularly reviewed at formal meetings and reports to Visit Wales, Local Authority partnerships and Trade Association networks.

STEAM and national survey data, together with evaluation and monitoring linked to marketing campaigns will be used to measure trends against the strategy target of 17% growth per annum in tourism expenditure and to benchmark South West Wales against other destinations.

Targets are set for individual projects from training to marketing based on leverage for both investment and return on expenditure incurred. Conversion and tracking studies are built into activity.

The SWWTP is not a trade membership body itself but is supporting and assisting with development and enhancement of the trade network in the region. Formal communication channels are established with key public, private and voluntary stake holder organisations. SWWTP maintains an information website and issue regular bulletins.

SWWTP took a decision to minimise expenditure on corporate public relations and instead works with our partners to disseminate news and opportunities, thus retaining core funding for direct project dissemination.

Four Regional Tourism Partnerships (RTPs) were established in Wales in 2001, coterminous with the four regional economic fora areas. The RTPs main role is to lead the implementation of the regional tourism strategies which seek to improve the competitiveness and performance of their respective regions. The underlying aim of all four regional tourism strategies is to ensure that tourism makes a better contribution to the social and economic prosperity of not only the individual region but Wales in general.

RTPs work in partnership with Visit Wales (formerly Wales Tourist Board), local authorities, the private sector and with other organisations with an interest in tourism. Partnership activities include marketing, product investment and development and business support activities on behalf of the tourism industry. Most of these activities are delivered under contract by third parties. The RTPs have small executive teams of staff who plan, manage and monitor the delivery of these contracted activities and who report to a Management Board comprised of public and private sector Directors.

Visit Wales devolves funding to the 4 RTPs to support the essential, strategically led activities that they deliver and works closely with the RTPs to ensure that duplication is avoided and to ensure that scarce resources are used effectively for the benefit of the tourism industry and economic health of Wales.

The four RTPs (Capital Region Tourism – covering south east Wales, Tourism Partnership Mid Wales, Tourism Partnership North Wales and the South West Wales Tourism Partnership) are accountable for the funds devolved to them by Visit Wales which agrees the RTPs annual Business plans, receives quarterly progress reports and monitors the RTPs performance against agreed targets.