Agenda item

The Board received a presentation from Charlotte Goy, Chief Executive Officer (Destination Lincolnshire). During consideration of the presentation, the following points were noted: -

• The project focussed on digitalising the visitor economy and high street through creative place making
• Destinations with a growing visitor economy tracked and responded to people’s digital behaviours

• The purpose of Lincoln Connected was the destination of the growing visitor economy. Both money and visitors had returned to the City post pandemic
• Lincoln Connected was similar to a digital web and the primary focus was connecting together through digital investment as well as the capital investment

• The visitor economy was worth approximately £3billion and a great deal of work had taken place around the traditional visitor journey
• Ruddocks had been procured to refresh the Visit Lincoln brand of which the Roman heritage within Lincoln was reflected. The focus was on the 3 P’s: Place, Product, People
• The new website was softly launched at the end of September 2024 and contained an important blogs and story section. Curated content was very important of which had experienced over 60K views of the 3 added on the website. The blog section had previously been hidden on a great deal of websites however it was now front and centre

• Reference was made to interactive wayfinding. A wayfinding expert that had worked in other heritage cities such as York had been commissioned
• Discussions had taken place with the Ministry for funding for international tourism for South Lincolnshire
• Thanks were offered to both the Board and the City of Lincoln Council

The Chair offered thanks to Charlotte Goy for the presentation and welcomed comments and questions. Members of the Board discussed the content of the presentation in further detail and the following questions and comments emerged:

Comment: Thanks were offered for the informative and detailed presentation.

Question: Was there a profile of the tourism within Lincoln and from that, were there any target areas that were missed?

Response: Yes. Visitor profiling took place and key personas and segments considered, which included the amount spent, where individuals lived and what they were interested in. Visit Lincoln was being tailored around the kind of visitor desired as opposed to who already visited. It was a huge programme of work around internationalisation. It was hoped that the £750K for Lincolnshire would help to realise some international opportunities for Lincolnshire. Resource issue was problematic.

Question: The work was very exciting. Had consideration been given to using some of the collateral to help attract people to come and work in Lincoln? How could firms and institutions be helped in order to use all of the information available?

Response: Many of the Destination assets were used to develop a microsite. The message was rather than come and visit Lincoln, come and live in Lincoln. There was a huge potential to do more than that. Digital infrastructure allowed us to work with partners in a sustainable and efficient way and to capture the data

Question: There was a great deal of information/data. Was it possible to use the data and have agreements in place, that things are replicated?

Response: The vision was to do some asset creation guidelines, Lincoln Connected had enabled the funding of an online image galley, available to businesses. The project had enabled the technology to be purchased however there was a large amount of stakeholder engagement that needed to be embarked upon in the creation of the project’s legacy.

Comment from Hamish Falconer MP: Thanks offered to Charlotte Goy for the presentation given. It was interesting to see such a rich data set which was very useful. It could be argued that Lincoln was a young dynamic city. Offered accounts to be a part of the work and as a Foreign Office Minister, promotion of Lincoln was desired as much as possible.

Response: Thanks offered to Hamish Falconer MP for his comments. He would be kept informed of progression.

Question: Members could help with United States connections, which would put Lincoln on the map. With the demise of the Lincolnite, was there scope to evolve the events and local news, for people not only visiting Lincoln, but people living in Lincoln also?

Response: The project would never become a News site as it did not have a journalist news team. It was important that the correct balance was ensured. The project received a great deal of requests to help people at a hyper local level. The project was presently in the final stages of trying to get a visitor economy journalist employed and it was important to have a channel for that. Journalistic content would be embarked upon.

Comment: It made sense that there had been a gap and it appeared that the work could fill the gap.

Question: I terms of other stakeholders, who were the people that were going to take the project from the current stage until the end?

Response: The procurement for the technology was the global leading supplies, Simple View. The technology being built in Lincoln rivalled any other client base that Simple View had. A number of their technical suppliers had also been secured. Much of the remaining work was carried out within the Destination Lincolnshire team; it was the technology that had been brought in.

Comment: Noting the Board’s responsibility to Lincoln, it would be helpful to understand that the ‘north star’ on funding was pointing to Lincoln, not Lincolnshire.

Response: Lincoln was the attack brand and the ‘north star’ when Lincoln as a place was thought of. Visit Lincoln had ringfenced what was going on within the city. The project board comprised of City stakeholders which captured Lincoln as a place.

RESOLVED that the content of the project presentation be noted with thanks.