Sustainable Communities

Rural Visitor Accommodation Scheme

"Developing business facilities, marketing & promotion, accommodation grading, training opportunities"

The project is providing financial assistance to help rural businesses in Leicestershire diversify and upgrade their services and facilities to provide high-quality accommodation and attractions for visitors. This will assist in the regeneration of rural areas by achieving increases in employment, skills and new business formation.

Organisation: Leicestershire County Council

Completion Date: 31/03/2009

Location

North West Leicestershire, Hinckley & Bosworth, Charnwood, Blaby, Oadby & Wigston

Project Description

Leicester Shire Promotions is committed to driving the quality agenda. The introduction of new schemes to incentivise accommodation and attraction operators to ensure they are quality graded will play a key role in helping us to achieve our quality goals. The grant scheme is a very useful and effective programme to support this strategy - Martin Peters, Chief Executive, Leicester Shire Promotions

There are four elements to the scheme:

Tourism Development Grant - To provide businesses with financial support so that services can be developed and upgraded to offer enhanced quality visitor experience. The grant is designed to give businesses the freedom to develop a variety of imaginative projects that meet their specific needs. Projects might include: putting in en-suite facilities; provision of signage for tourist attractions, etc.

Accommodation & Attraction Inspection Grant - Financial assistance to promote the visitor offer through quality assured recognition. The scheme offers establishments the opportunity to gain a nationally recognised grading, with which all visitors associate high levels of quality. One of the biggest advantages in becoming inspected is that a business will receive an increased profile.

Tourism Marketing Grant - Has been developed in order to assist tourism-related businesses to raise their profile and attract new visitors through effective marketing & promotion.

Tourism Training Grant - Tourism relies upon customer service excellence in order to create a quality,p ositive visitor experience. The grant provided financial assistance to businesses in order that employees and proprieters may develop necessary skills to succeed in the tourism industry.

Outcomes

1. To help businesses raise the quality and accessibility of their tourism product.

2. To enhance the overall visitor experience throughout the designated areas.

Applications are invited from tourism-related businesses and organisations in the designated areas. Organisations must:

• Employ less than full-time equivalent of 50 people;
• Be paying council tax or business rates to one of the five local authorities in the designated area;
• Be involved in the development and operation of tourist related facilities and services.

Businesses may be from a variety of sectors: e.g. attractions - farms, gardens, etc; accommodation - hotels and B&Bs; leisure - horse riding, etc; food - restaurants and cafes; retail - garden centres, etc; or culture - visitor centres and galleries.

Project Contacts

Project manager:
Judith Billington
Tel: 0116 265 7031
E-mail: jbillington@leics.gov.uk
Website: www.leics.gov.uk

LSEP contact:
Gill Smitherman
Tel: 0116 257 5676
Email: gills@lsep.co.uk
Website: www.lsep.co.uk