Prior to developing their Regional Tourism Strategy, South West Tourism decided that they needed to a clear and robust picture of the performance and potential of tourism in their region. They appointed The Tourism Company to undertake a complete review. This resulted in one of the most comprehensive and integrated data gathering exercises undertaken for a region at any one time. Our final report ‘State of Tourism – South West’ brought together in one place the following information:

• An objective overview of the region’s tourism product, combined with a competitor analysis
• A functional market segmentation
• A comparative summary of the performance of sub-regional destinations
• A reassessment of market perceptions of the region, based on a series of focus groups held in target UK markets
• A new quantification of the total stock of accommodation and other resources – comparing evidence of collected records with reality on the ground
• A comprehensive presentation of the performance, views and needs of tourism enterprises, based on a region-wide enterprise survey
• Re-working of data on the impact of tourism on income and employment, based on the Cambridge model.

The data was widely disseminated, through web access and in other ways, and was used extensively by the regional tourist board and also by their partners in tourism planning.

  Back to Research and Intelligence

  More Examples from our Project Archive