A personal letter from our Director, David Holmes

Dear Colleague,

I’m writing to you as a fellow Visit IW Levy Payer. You’ll have received your voting slip for the BID3 ballot by now to decide whether or not VisitIW should continue for another five years.

I wrote to you about a year ago asking you to vote for myself and others to be elected onto the VisitIW Board so that we could sort out the significant failures in the governance, direction and running of VisitIW.

I’m pleased to say that having given us your votes we have been able to do that. We have:

Transformed the team working at Visit IW
Focused VisitIW on marketing the Island to visitors
Stopped funds being spent on events of no real relevance to tourism

Looking ahead to the next 5-year plan for VisitIW, we have put the following in place:

A fairer funding model, in which the ferry operators provide a much bigger share of the funds
Introduced different rates so that pure tourism businesses pay more than other businesses that are only partly benefitting from tourism
Arranged Direct Debit payment options for next year onwards so that payments can be spread across the year
Removed the minimum payment for the smallest businesses who were being disproportionately charged

With a more effective organisation, focused only on bringing visitors to the Island, and funded in line with those who benefit most, we have now reached the point where it is time to vote to carry on with VisitIW.

I’m going to pull no punches – we have to carry on. Voting No would mean that there would be no organisation to market the Island to visitors.

This would be suicidal. More than ever we need to deliver best in class marketing for the Island, out-competing rival tourist destinations.

38%

The Island relies on Tourism for 38% of its economy.

I have spent the last year working with other tourism business leaders on the Island to take back control of VisitIW, repurpose the organisation, focus it on its job, and to ensure that the ferry operators and others contribute their proper fair share to marketing the Isle of Wight.

Please – for the sake of our Island – VOTE YES!

With best regards,

David Holmes

A personal letter from our Director, David Holmes