Skegness relies on tourists, if tourism dries up Skegness dies.
The councils should be going out of their way to make visitors stay in Skegness as enjoyable as possible with an aim every pound the council spends will reap at least the same amount back. Having a golden sands beach is not a good enough reason for people to holiday in Skegness, we need to provide more.
You have to spend money to make money, speculate to accumulate… and with more people looking to holiday at home now because of the recession, this is not the time to cut back on investment to attract more visitors to Skeggy. We need to give the visitors such a great time when the economy picks up, they still visit Skegness, maybe not as their main holiday, but as a second holiday.
The SEAS and SO festivals for example are unlikely to have made the area as much money as they cost, though in some respects we (Skegness/Lincolnshire) didn’t pay for the vast majority of it (we did really as the money comes from us through taxes etc…).
I don’t know where the funding for this years SO festival will come from, but if they want this to be a regular yearly event they should be aiming for it to pay for itself through sponsorships, increases in tourism revenue, charging for parts of the events (I’m sure most people would have paid for the music/fireworks on the beach for example), so we can have it every year and build on it. Doesn’t have to be completely free.
Then there’s the Skegness Carnival which is considered a major Skegness event, but gets no funding from the council! I’m not impressed with the Skegness Carnival, (as my wife puts it, it’s a parade not a carnival) but considering all the money is generated by the Carnival committee, (charity) what should we expect (it’s hard to raise money when it makes no money back). £120,000 on stupid plants in blue pots that look tacky and no investment to an event like the Skegness Carnival that has the potential to pull in thousands of visitors to Skegness with money to spend.
I’m not impressed.
David
