Jersey’s low profile hampers the lofty aims of tourism

This was brought home to me during a visit last week to the amazing Keukenhof gardens just outside Amsterdam. As is common at these attractions, there was market research being carried out on visitors.

Always keen to help tourism flourish, even in Holland, I agreed to fill in a short questionnaire. This invited me to say where I came from and there was a large section for the United Kingdom the home of very many visitors keen to see the blossoms of Keukenhof. But the questionnaire went much further and asked you what part of the UK you came from. So there was a section for Scotland, another for Wales, one for the southeast, another for the north west, and so on. But nothing for the Channel Islands and certainly nothing for Jersey.

I wouldn’t have been too surprised by that, except the form included a section for our friends in the Isle of Man to compete. So apparently the compilers of the questionnaire had heard of the Isle of Man, but was totally ignorant of the existence of Jersey or even the Channel Islands as a whole.

I gleefully scribbled all over the form, crossing out the Isle of Man and inserting Jersey, underlining it several times. So perhaps when the information is collated, someone will look at the map and discover Jersey.

Now this is not a terribly significant occurrence, except when you realize that Jersey Tourism is keen to attract more visitors from Europe, particularly from Germany, which is little more than two hours drive away.

The Dutch are also keen travellers. The Netherlands is the UK’s 8th most important market for inbound tourists, attracting 1.7m visits a year. If Jersey attracted just one percent of that number it would be – yes, wait for it – 17,000 visits. In fact just 3,339 Dutch visitors came to Jersey last year.

The figures were higher when there were direct flights between the two, but tourism is very much a chicken and egg type industry. There won’t be direct flights to a destination hardly anyone has heard of, and vice versa.

So there is a serious message coming out of my encounter with market researchers in the Netherlands. The Island may spend a modest amount of money promoting the Island in Europe – in fact too modest by half – but it’s not working. The awareness of the Island is small if my experience is anything to go by.

The next serious question this incident raises is whether more Dutch visitors would come to Jersey if they knew about it.

Some would undoubtedly come if they heard about the beaches, the countryside, the heritage and the friendly people (yes, most of us are friendly to tourists).

But as Dutch people would likely be attracted by a short break rather than an extended holiday, there would have to be something of specific interest which would persuade them to visit the Island. Now Holland has a very long horticultural tradition and has even produced some of our own well-known growers.

There is evidence of this love of horticulture all over the country, including the once in every ten years Floriade world horticultural festival currently taking place at Venlo. A visit to that event shows just how diverse the subject can be.

Jersey also has a long horticultural tradition, but not a great deal to show for it.

True, the experts at the Tourism Department do what they can to promote gardening festivals and events because they know how popular this kind of thing is in the UK. There was even talk about a major permanent horticultural attraction, which would be ideal for an island like Jersey, and presumably prove very popular with visitors. But nothing much has happened – as usual.

We have the Battle of Flowers, of course, which might fit the bill as a major attraction again. But it’s no longer so well known in the UK and certainly not the Netherlands, and in it’s current form has little to do with horticulture.

However the Battle of Flowers could be given a new lease of life as part of a horticultural attraction bringing in Dutch and other tourists.

The battle certainly needs a radical rethink which is obviously difficult for the battle stalwarts who generally like things as they are and would be reluctant to change. So we have what I assume is still supposed to be the biggest attraction in the tourism calendar, held in the middle of the summer when the hotels should be full in any case.

A Battle of Flowers as the centerpiece of a week-long horticultural festival at about this time of the year, might just boost tourism a little from the UK and even the Netherlands. Most importantly it could help to lengthen the tourism season, which has long been the aim of the island, but which so far has attracted little real effort.

An idea like this would require investment, of course, but as the tourism authorities emphasize the need for more and better events if the industry is to be successful, it should be money well spent.

I have absolutely no idea whether this is the case or whether a suggestion like this would work. However I am absolutely sure that many people will come out with many reasons why it couldn’t work and is basically a daft idea. But at least it’s an idea in an industry that is beginning to appear devoid of new ideas.

Certainly events will be an important ingredient in an expanding tourism industry. There are already plenty of organisations keen to promote their own interests and activities. Some of the events taking place already could grow into something quite significant, but they are not there yet, and they need a lot more nurturing and support.

However the Island still needs a third major event or attraction to bring in new tourists as opposed to simply keeping the existing ones happy.

Certainly that will be the only way that tourism and the Island will get on the map in the Netherlands.

Peter Body is the editor of Business Brief magazine