Councillor Phil Davies introduced a report by the Chief Executive that informed the Cabinet of a presentation it was to receive on the economic benefit analysis of The Open Golf Championship held in Hoylake during 2014.

Councillor Phil Davies also introduced John Gerrie – METROPUBLIC, Professor Simon Shibli – Sheffield Halam University and Max Gilliam – Repucom who were in attendance at the meeting to collectively make the presentation.

The presentation was based on the research of a global sports marketing company, Repucon and Sheffield Hallam University’s Sports Research Centre commissioned by The R & A, golf’s governing body.  They had calculated that The Open at Royal Liverpool had delivered a total economic benefit of £76.3m across the Wirral area and to the wider economy of the North West.  An estimated £19.1m had been spent by over 200,000 visitors and Wirral businesses including restaurants, hotels and guest houses, pubs and shops had benefitted during the week long championship.

The Cabinet was informed that the international media coverage of the event had resulted in a tourism promotion benefit of £52.2m, based on the marketing of the Wirral as a desirable travel and investment destination.  There had been over 5,400 hours of television coverage of The Open across 106 television channels, with a worldwide reach of 505 million households.

Following the presentation Members asked a number of questions which were answered as appropriate.  Issues highlighted included:

·  St Andrew’s hosted the biggest Open Championship in the UK attracting up to half a million spectators and Royal Liverpool was in second place.  It was hoped that it would not be too long before the Open returned to Royal Liverpool.

·  The R & A owned and ran The Open.  There was a Trust and all profits were invested back into the development of the game.

·  Approximately 6000 people had received passes to work at The Open e.g. in catering working with excellent chefs which had provided good experience which could be included on future CVs.  Some people had been employed as Golf Ambassadors and had received training in customer care skills.  The new skills learnt would help them to get jobs in the future.

·  During the 2014 Open Championship an unusually high number of spectators had been from the local area.  This was good for quality of life on Wirral.  A postcode map would be made available to Members so they could see in detail were the spectators had come from.

·  A visitor experience report would be made available to Members so they could get an idea of people’s perceptions of Wirral as a place to visit.

The Cabinet agreed that The Open was an opportunity for Wirral to promote itself to a global audience, and it was equally important that local people saw the real and tangible benefits of hosting the event.

To further build on this economic benefit, the Cabinet was asked to support a North West Open Golf Championship Memorandum of Understanding.

The Cabinet noted that the return of the Open Championship in 2014 had provided Wirral with a significant opportunity to build on the success of the previous Open held in 2006.  In planning for the Open Championship this year it noted a number of marketing initiatives had been undertaken, including:

·  A broadcast quality promotional film, used by The R&A and international media.

·  Gateway signage to welcome visitors from far and wide onto Wirral.

·  Bespoke literature to support Wirral’s local tourism businesses.

·  Target advertising, e.g. billboards, notices etc.

·  On site visitor information displays.

The Council had worked with colleagues at Merseylearn to deliver “WorldHost” training programmes to over 250 people.  This training had encouraged and supported Wirral’s tourism businesses in anticipation of welcoming tens of thousands of visitors to Wirral.  The training had been provided to a range of services and people including local businesses, taxi drivers and Wirral Golf Ambassadors.

The Council’s Tourism Team had promoted the peninsula’s visitor offer and over £100,000 of accommodation enquiries had been taken during the 2013 Open at Muirfield.  These provisional enquiries had been distributed throughout Wirral’s accommodation providers and many had resulted in bookings.

The Cabinet noted from the report that to ensure that the Council evaluated the economic success of an event of this scale and to ensure that any claims of success could stand up to scrutiny, it had been necessary to seek the assistance of independent experts.  Therefore in collaboration with The R&A reports had been commissioned from Repucom, the Sport Industry Research Centre from Sheffield Hallam University and the North West Research Agency.  The outcome of the findings had been presented in the presentation.

In addition to the visitor attraction statistics, staff from the Council’s Economic Policy Team had worked with colleagues from Job Centre Plus (JCP) to organise an Open Golf Jobs Fair on 7 May 2014.  400 people had been registered on the day and with further subsequent advertising, this figure had increased to over 1000 registrations.  These registrations had led to 944 jobs for 20 different employers.  JCP had not anticipated the large numbers of claimants signing off due to the work they had taken up as the hours worked for most individuals were within the JCP part time limits.  The real benefit had been the work experience that would enrich CVs and the skills picked up as part of the pre-employment training that had been provided.  Current hospitality vacancies across the district were being considered for those claimants who had registered for the event and were still unemployed. 

The North West Coast was home to three of the current Open Championship venues – Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Royal Birkdale Golf Club and Royal Lytham and St Annes Golf Club.  They provided the North West with an enviable opportunity to host a championship every three or four years.

It was reported that in order to ensure that all agencies and delivery partners were operating on as consistent and uniform a Championship model as possible, the Chief Executive and The R&A had designed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which set out the common foundations for future delivery of a North West Open Championship.

The MoU was attached at Appendix 1 to the report and identified the co-signatories as R&A Championship Staging Limited and the Local Authorities of Wirral, Flyde, Sefton and Lancashire County Council along with the Lancashire Constabulary, Merseyside Police and Merseytravel, plus the train operating companies Northern Rail and Merseyrail. 

RESOLVED: That:

(1)  Professor Shibli and Messrs Gerrie and Gilliam be thanked for their attendance at the meeting and for their informative presentation;

(2)  the findings of the report and the economic importance of an Open Championship for Wirral and for the North West region be noted; and

(3)  the North West Open Golf Championship Memorandum of Understanding be supported.