GLOUCESTER RENAISSANCE
“It was a case of branding the city. You change the image that people have of a place by doing something like that. The city was ready for it. It was ready to see the resurrection of its brand. “People were able to say they were proud of their city. It was an
“We’ve had to create a marketable product. “That’s why we have developed strategies for the visitor economy, cultural sector, retail sector and a city- wide digital strategy and developed micro solutions to some of the challenges that were facing Gloucester. “Sometimes it is the little things that matter as much as the big things. “For the last six years, we have been working with partners such as Gloucester BID to ensure that the city has hanging baskets and that the City Protection Officers came into being. “All those things matter in creating that pride of place, creating that positive feeling around the city. Unless you work on that, you will not develop that successful product. “Gloucester had a huge success during the 2015 Rugby World Cup.We thought about how it was going to work for the whole of the city. “We weren’t passive in our approach. We wanted to squeeze every single piece of juice out of it. We spent days working with the national and international media to show off the city. “We worked hard with theWorld Cup organisers to feed visitors from the station to Kingsholm via the city and Cathedral. “During that year, we saw a big increase in day visitors and it’s not dropped off in the years since. We overtook Cheltenham as a tourist destination in 2015.
Jason Smith
event focussed on, and staged in, Gloucester. “No longer did the people of the city have to look at others and compare themselves to them. That marked a major change.” A fixture of the calendar since then, the Tall Ships has been – if you excuse the awful pun – the anchor of what Marketing Gloucester does and it is an event that has grown year on year. As the organisation grew and the confidence of the city rose around it, the portfolio of events grew too. Mr Owen said:“After two years we needed change, new direction and new blood to take it forward. “The physical changes around the city began to take hold, the economy started to improve and there was some positive momentum and after Jason came in, we have been moving forward.” Mr Smith added: “We are called Marketing Gloucester, but that’s a bit of a misnomer. It’s easy to say we’ll spend money on advertising, but back then we didn’t really have a product to advertise.
76 | July 2019 | www. punchline-gloucester .com
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