Taxi tests to pull up in Jersey?

Wednesday 23 November 2016

Visit Jersey have set out their plans for 2017, and improving the way taxi drivers represent the Island to visitors could be on their agenda.

Visit Jersey gets £5m a year from the States to generate more visitors to the Island, with a long term objective of getting 1million annually by 2030, who then spend £500million while they are here.

Yesterday, Visit Jersey held their annual industry presentation to more than 100 representatives from the tourism sector, and set out what they had done so far, and what was coming up in 2017. 

One of the questions they asked the audience was: "Once Visitors step off a plane or boat, where do we need to up our game?" Commercial Director for the Ports of Jersey, Myra Shacklady fed back the comments of her table, which were that the number of taxis available at busy times at the harbour and airport needs to increase, and the way some drivers represent the Island to visitors could be improved.

Those comments were echoed on other tables, with one suggesting 'Island knowledge' style training for drivers - those views were passed onto Visit Jersey to consider as part of their plans for 2017. 

Earlier, the audience heard from Dave Goodyear, a consultant from Tourism Economics, who has been advising Visit Jersey on the value created by the tourism sector to the Island - he said that in 2015, 3.7% of Jersey's GVA was generated by tourism, which was more than the UK generally, but less that Wales or the South West specifically. Also, he said 8.6% of jobs in Jersey are in the tourism sector. 

He also pointed out that Jersey has more restaurants per square kilometre than East Sussex, Cornwall, Devon, Isle of Wight, Isle of Man and Pembrokeshire, and more hotels per square kilometre than all of them apart from the Isle of Wight - two measures, he said, of the contribution of the sector to the local way of life. 

Visit Jersey will present their next business plan to Ministers next week, and its CEO, Keith Beecham said there would be three guiding principles: 

"Firstly, our role is to inspire people from overseas to visit the Island. Our second guiding light is to maximise the value of the public investment, about £5m, and we do that through partnerships - most of our marketing funds are aligned with those of other partners. Our third guiding principle is to advise government and industry partners on industry matters, particularly those that affect our competitiveness."

He also said that in 2017 Visit Jersey will, "..take Scandinavia seriously [as a source of visitors], and see how we can take that forward over a three to five year period."