Join us at the 2024 Visitor Economy Conference taking place at Medina Theatre on the 1st February 2024. This invite is exclusively for Wight BID levy payers and Voluntary Contributors and is an opportunity to get together with colleagues across the industry and hear from leading experts. 

Agenda items include:

• What are your customers looking for and how can you make the Isle of Wight the destination of choice?
• How can Isle of Wight businesses be more inclusive and benefit from the purple pound?
• How can we attract new and more visitors to come to the Isle of Wight and extend the season and how can you help?

Guests can expect 5 sessions across the day from speakers who are experts in their field, followed by Q&A opportunities where the floor will open to comments and questions from attendees.

Andrew Stokes OBE, the Director of VisitEngland will deliver the key-note speech, highlighting the overall national tourism picture and reflecting on the Local Visitor Economy Partnership status recently awarded to Visit Isle of Wight and what it means to the Island.

Isle of Wight tourism businesses will be given the chance to learn more about the latest sustainable travel updates with Rebecca Armstrong, Sustainable Travel specialist at The Travel Foundation and Amy Summers, Sustainable Travel manager at Visit Isle of Wight.

The third session sees opportunities from accessible travel, a market valued at an estimated £15 billion in the UK, highlighted by Ross Calladine, Accessibility and Lead Inclusion at Visit England & the Government appointed Disability & Access Ambassador for Tourism, alongside Neil Chapman, Managing Director of Hovertravel.

After a lunch break, the afternoon sessions kick off with Rachel Randell from HTP Apprenticeship College, who will be addressing the lack of skilled staffing issue currently affecting many Island businesses.

This will be followed by the final session of the day, which sees Visit Isle of Wight MD Will Myles take to the stage with Martin Hull, director of leading UK travel branding agency Designate, to discuss how Visit Isle of Wight can increase the number of visitors to the Island, and what local businesses can do to help.

Confirmed exhibitors at the Visitor Economy Conference include cross Solent travel providers Hovertravel, Red Funnel and Wightlink, Isle of Wight Biosphere representatives and the Isle of Wight National Landscape (formerly AONB).

The event runs between 11am and 4pm and includes a buffet lunch. Free bus travel will be provided with Southern Vectis. 

The conference is only 4 weeks away, so book your place NOW, follow this link: https://VisitorEconomyConference.eventbrite.co.uk