A trio of Cultural Destinations

The second round of the Cultural Destinations programme is now well underway, and the 16 destination consortia are increasingly looking at the benefits in working together to share and enhance their best practice. Cultural Destinations (CD) presents a very particular and timely opportunity for destinations, both established and emerging in their cultural offer and reputation. As such, we have developed a number of partnerships to be able to best provide strategic support and advice, and most notable of these is with The Audience Agency. We are working together with three CD projects at the moment – Cheshire, Halifax and Wakefield – split between new consortia and those who have secured funding in both stages. We’re taking a particularly close look at how the partners that make up these consortia can come together to transform their priority target market impact. Each partnership group is different, so how they work together is vital to get right – online & offline, research & evaluation, projects & pilots, communications & campaigns, product & programming etc. Developed within a single, shared approach all informed by data-driven insight, these projects are building a much deeper understanding of current audiences and their visitor baseline, and their own cultural and tourism offer. This is starting to creatively bridge the gap between culture and tourism, identifying shared objectives, generating new ambition as it goes, and all through sustainable partnership working. Makes the heart warm.

Image: Piece Hall, Halifax