Smart Talking with The St. Andrews Partnership

In this week’s Smart Talking, we chat to Aileen Lamb, Project Manager, Scottish Enterprise, and Board Member, St. Andrews Partnership; and Morvern Connolly, Online & Communications Executive, St.Andrews Partnership.

Hi Aileen and Morvern, welcome to Smart Talking. Where did the idea come from for The St Andrews Partnership and what prompted its formation?

Aileen and Morvern: The idea was prompted by the identification of a need for a new partnership initiative aimed with the task of making the town a better place to live, visit and work. An initiative to group all the businesses in St. Andrews under a common brand to set the benchmark of a standard of excellence thus promoting St. Andrews as a place to be!

St Andrews has an international reputation as a destination for golfers, leisure visitors and as the oldest seat of learning in Scotland. Businesses and locals in the town agree that working together will support and reinforce the managed development of the town for everyone.

What are the key benefits of such a collaboration of organisations for St. Andrews as a destination?

Aileen and Morvern: The key benefits of such collaboration are primarily a brand image for St. Andrews as a “must visit” tourist destination. A brand that unites all the organisations in St. Andrews for the common good of the town with the aim to add value to the experience of St. Andrews. Businesses also benefit from the ability to have a much more powerful voice as part of the collaborative effort than they would have alone. We know that visitors want to see a holistic view of what a destination has on offer – through the Visit StAndrews channels we are able to provide this.

In terms of this kind of collaboration – what kind of people and organisations are involved and how important would you say this aspect is to your success and continuing development?

Aileen and Morvern: It involves anyone from the townspeople to local businesses that want to see the town flourish. We would be nothing without the continuous collaboration and support from the town, the tourists and the people that make St. Andrews such an attractive destination.

The people who help guide the St Andrews Partnership strategically are from all aspects of life – businesses; the University; the community and  the public sector. Everyone brings different experiences and together as a team we identify the key activities which the Partnership can undertake which will ultimately contribute to the highest standards of visitor experience.

Whilst much of the Partnership’s activity is visitor facing, local people really do benefit too – and this virtuous circle is continued when visitors feel the pride which locals rightly have in their town.

The online channel Visit St. Andrews places a strong focus on social media and online activities– how have these helped to develop the initiative and what kind of benefits and challenges have they brought?

Aileen and Morvern: The majority of travel planning and research is done through use of the Internet so it is only logical to have a strong web presence so that anyone from the locals to a visitor from Hong Kong can access the same amount of up-to-date and local information to better makes use of their time in St. Andrews.

In terms of social media we know that word of mouth is one of the best practices of marketing and social media is a platform for endless engagement and interaction with peers to better express opinions and advice. Therefore having a social media presence is imperative, especially in the new age of technology where aspects of social media are integral to current and future generations’ lifestyles.

The St Andrews Partnership knew from our customer intelligence that the destination has many passionate visitors and inhabitants. We were also aware that rich, engaging content, created by people who love the town, would be the most appealing (and believable) to the people we wanted to talk to.  We have built our community of passionate advocates – this passion is infectious as people will see as soon as they engage.

Both the online activities and social media activities have helped develop the initiative by making it accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime of the day which allows us to connect with potential visitors and businesses from anywhere in the world. However technology changes constantly presenting many opportunities as well as challenges therefore we need to aim to be constantly in the loop to keep up not only with our changing customer base but also St Andrews diverse markets.

The current economic climate is particularly challenging for businesses, not least for the Scottish tourism industry – how is your organisation coping with that – any positives coming out of the experience and any advice for other destinations?

Aileen and Morvern: This presents a challenge, but also creates opportunities for Scottish tourism. St Andrews has a much higher than average percentage of international visitors (due to our amazing reputation as the Home of Golf) – we have managed to maintain much of this visitor segment, whilst also attracting new, Northern European visitors. However, local businesses have also concentrated on looking after our Scottish and the rest of our UK visitors, providing added-value benefits which have enticed customers into the destination.

St Andrews Partnership needs cash to fund the work it undertakes on behalf of the destination. The days of attracting public sector support for a wide number of projects are over. However the Partnership has identified a real opportunity to generate funds which sometimes can be matched with cash from the public sector. The development of “Brighter St. Andrews” – a voluntary visitor donation scheme sees over 40 local businesses collecting donations from visitors to support the development of key projects in the future. Visitors are comfortable paying an additional £1 or £2 on their bill from a local hotel or restaurant because they can see how they will benefit from the type of projects the funds go to – most recently the installation of twenty-five visitor interpretations signs.

The turbulent economic climate has forced us all to be more creative and resourceful with our marketing – our advice to others would be to invest in social media. Social media allows for two-way communication that is relatively inexpensive and is fun to maintain. It also enables a business or a destination to build a community of advocates who will help promote your brand at no cost to you.  By engaging more with consumers you are giving added value to their experience by giving an authoritative voice on that they can rely on and seek advice from on their chosen destination. Social media channels also provide a free medium to undertake market research – people don’t hesitate to share their opinions!

One of our success stories of our efforts with social media and blogging is that Visit St Andrews has in 2011 , been repeatedly  ranked as one of the top 20 most influential tourist boards and destination marketing organisations in the world, and the second most influential in the UK after Visit Britain; a huge success for a very modestly-resourced venture run from a small town.

What is The St. Andrews Partnership up to at the moment?  Any news you would like to share with us?

Aileen and Morvern: We are currently looking at many different ways to help promote our town – continuing to use our social media channels and build our community. We want to begin reaching out to our non-English speaking audiences by working with bloggers who will write in a range of other languages. We are also working with the business tourism venues in St Andrews to make sure our online activity reflects the destination’s amazing conference offer. The final area we are working on in the next year or so is supporting collaboration between the festivals in Fife and tourism businesses who can generate more visitor spend by tying up their offer with key events.

Our main focus in the next month or two is our up-and-coming workshops to help local business get to grips with social media and learn how to use it effectively for their own business needs whilst encouraging more businesses to engage with the Visit St. Andrews online community.

Many thanks for Smart Talking with us, Aileen and Morvern. All the best with future developments!

For more information on Visit St. Andrews visit www.standrews.co.uk or follow on Facebook or Twitter.