Inverness and Loch Ness tourism body to learn if its bid for £30,000 to help the area and sector recover through increased marketing is successful as councillors are set to make a decision
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The Visit Inverness Loch Ness Tourism Business Improvement District (VILN) has applied for £30,000 to go towards delivering a range of visitor marketing activities as part of local economic recovery plans.
The plan envisages using visits from influencers along with film, targeted social media and online marketing to promote the area, highlighting venues and business events among other potential attractions.
VILN prices the project at £60,000 over two years and is seeking half of that sum from the Inverness Common Good Fund.
The rest would be made up of contributions of £15,000 each per year to come from VILN itself and the Inverness city business improvement district.
VILN said the proposal sought to overcome a difficulty with its business model that saw it unable to promote the city centre in its marketing efforts, despite the heart of Inverness clearly having much to offer potential visitors to the wider Highland area.
Inverness city centre also potentially benefits from anything that attracts more visitors to the surrounding area.
In its application for Common Good funding the tourism body said: “An inability to market across boundary lines has a detrimental impact on the business members of both BID organisations and local communities who rely on employment, a strong economy, and a high quality of life with many opportunities for activities, food and drink, places to stay and services that support these sectors.”
The two organisations believe they have found the solution “through an unprecedented collaboration” involving the BID organisations working alongside Highland Council’s city of Inverness area manager, David Haas.
The application added: “This collaborative proposal allows activity to take place which due to structural conflict with both business plans could not happen otherwise and has not been previously delivered.”
The application has been recommended for approval.
It is due to be discussed and decided upon on later today by members of Highland Council’s city of Inverness area committee.
