New Visitor Intelligence Research For Lancashire
Over 63 million visitors choose Lancashire for their days out and short breaks each year, and the county’s Visitor Economy Strategy has set, amongst its ambitions, to increase that number to 70 million by 2020.
To grow visitor numbers to Lancashire and to better inform decisions on product development Marketing Lancashire, the county’s destination and place marketing organisation, has invested in the largest Lancashire-wide research project to date and appointed specialist research agency Tourism South East Research (TSE), to carry out this work.
TSE has a strong reputation within the sector for their research work, which includes extensive experience of carrying out visitor research, across the public and private sector, including local authorities, regional and national agencies, accommodation and attractions. They have conducted many county based visitor surveys and have a sound understanding of the tourism sector.
Dr Parves Khan heads up the research team and has substantial experience in the design, management and application of socio-economic research; She also has specific expertise in market measurement, customer satisfaction and segmentation, policy and marketing research and demand modelling.
Ruth Connor, Chief Executive of Marketing Lancashire commenting on the appointment of Tourism South East Research said
“We’re confident that Tourism South East Research and Dr Khan, with their vast experience and credibility in the field of tourism research, will deliver robust and valuable intelligence on our visitors that will help Lancashire deliver its ambition to increase visitor numbers by 7 million, over the next 4 years.
“This will be the most comprehensive and detailed county-wide visitor research for several years and we look forward very much to gaining a greater understanding of our current visitors and to highlighting the opportunities that will help attract new visitors, to our wonderfully diverse county.”
The research will encompass face-to-face visitor surveys, with a broad range of visitor types, at locations across Lancashire during 2016, commencing in July with the main summer holiday period and continuing until the end of the October half term period. Non-visitors will also be consulted for their views on Lancashire, their reasons for not having ever visited the county or, for not visiting in some considerable time. The project will include a process of segmentation; separating Lancashire’s visitors into broad socio-economic groups, key areas of interest and need, in order to better inform the implementation of targeted strategies for growth. The project will be completed by March 2017.
Commenting on the project Dr Parves Khan said
“In the competitive world, guesswork is not enough. A destination needs to understand who its visitors are, whether their needs and expectations are being met and about wider market trends in order to stay competitive and grow.
“At TSE Research we’ve been working with destinations for over 20 years, helping them gather the evidence they need to inform decisions to be made in relation to future visitor management, marketing initiatives and the enhancement of visitor facilities and services”.
For media enquiries please contact:
Anna Izza, Head of PR and Communications Tel: 01772 426 459
Laura Crabb, PR and Communications Executive Tel: 01772 426 456