Industry Update: 31 July 2020

Latest government advice – new local restrictions in Greater Manchester

A statement from our Managing Director, Sheona Southern, on behalf of Marketing Manchester, in response to new local restrictions in Greater Manchester and their impact on our tourism, hospitality and leisure industries:

“Whilst the Government’s approach to last night’s announcement leaves much to be desired, the fact of the matter is that the Government is concerned about spread of Covid-19 across Greater Manchester and any decision to move quickly to protect residents should be welcomed.

“The official guidance came out this morning confirming that households should not mix indoors, and this includes a rule prohibiting the mixing of households in hospitality venues such as pubs, bars and restaurants. This is an unfortunate set-back to where we were at the start of the July when the tourism, hospitality and leisure industries first began to reopen; however affected venues are ready to adapt to these rules in line with the Covid-19 Secure guidance that they followed when planning their reopening.

“As things stand then, we can all continue to support the reopening of the tourism, hospitality and leisure industries; however, it is incredibly important that we abide by these temporary rules on social contact in order to avoid more stringent measures being brought in should the rate of infection continue to rise.

“Any Greater Manchester tourism, hospitality or leisure business that requires additional support should get in touch with us via the Tourism and Hospitality Support Hub which can be accessed via the Marketing Manchester website.”

Full official guidance with a useful Q&A is now available on the Government website.

Government updates

  • Government has postponed the pilots of live performances, large gatherings and conferences, with no date as yet for their resumption. This may call into question the reopening of business events and conferences from 1 October and an update will be given in two weeks’ time.
  • New regulations will be introduced making face coverings mandatory for guests and visitors in corridors and public lobby areas of hotels (this was previously recommended under voluntary guidance and is now mandatory) as well as indoor tourist attractions such as aquariums, zoos, farms, museums and cultural sites, theatres, cinemas, beauty and hair salons, social clubs, indoor entertainment venues such as amusement arcades, funfairs, adventure activities escape rooms) and bingo and concert halls. Although mandatory from 8 August, face coverings are recommended with immediate effect.

Find Your Space campaign update

It’s been three weeks since we launched our new campaign, Find Your Space, and the reception from our partners has been fantastic.

Each week we plan to update you on key stats and campaign highlights and we’re delighted to let you know that since launch on 8 July the website has received 7,500 page views and our #FindYourSpaceMCR social media content has generated 320,000 impressions on Twitter and 1.2 million impressions on Facebook. These numbers should begin to increase over the coming weeks now that our partnership with the Manchester Evening News (MEN) is live using geo targeted adverts, including homepage takeovers.

It is expected that the MEN partnership will deliver 1.8 million Opportunities To See (OTS) for the campaign and the ability to target specific areas of Greater Manchester is an important deliverable for Find Your Space. You may remember that when we launched the campaign we revealed that our strategy would be to focus the first wave of our campaign is on hyper local audiences, encouraging Greater Manchester residents to get out and about in their local villages, towns, cities and countryside.

To support this and we have dedicated sections of the campaign website that focus on the nine Greater Manchester boroughs outside of Manchester – Bolton, Bury, Oldham (on hold), Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan – and following consultation with decision-makers in each borough, the MEN advertising is targeting audiences from different areas each week and serving them ads which drive traffic to alternative borough pages on the site.

We are continuously updating the content on these pages as well as our Manchester pages as usual, so if you have useful content or contributions please continue to send them to Ryan.Maley@marketingmanchester.com.



Find Your Space short breaks sub-campaign for hotel partners

With an annual value of £442 million to Greater Manchester’s economy, short breaks are hugely important to the local visitor economy and attracting visitors for a short break will be an important part of the Find Your Space campaign.

Marketing Manchester will begin to promote short breaks to regional visitors from August before increasing our catchment to national throughout the autumn season.

To make sure our autumn campaign has real cut through, we want hotels to help us to lead with a tactical offer of ‘Have a free night in Manchester’, which we will promote across the UK to capture people’s attention and facilitating bookings.

How the offer is administered will be up to inspanidual hotels allowing greater flexibility around rates and demand. Reservations will be made directly to your booking system via visitmanchester.com with the assistance of our distributor and partner TXGB. This approach has been developed in partnership and consultation with the MHA.

Please contact Laura.Mason@marketingmanchester.com by Monday 3 August to register your interest in participating in the campaign and provide your GDS/booking system which needs to be verified by TXGB for compatibility with their systems.

 

Northern DMOs launch new NatWest Tourism Business Barometer

As towns and cities across the north of England reopen their economies, a contingent of DMOs, led by Marketing Manchester, have come together to launch a new fortnightly business barometer which will measure the UK post-lockdown tourism business environment including shifts in employment, trends in revenue and overall business confidence.

Led by Marketing Manchester, nine DMOS – including Cumbria Tourism, Make It York, Marketing Cheshire, Marketing Lancashire, Marketing Liverpool, NewcastleGateshead Initiative, Visit County Durham and Visit Leeds – are involved and have agreed to recruit panel members from within the tourism economy that will consistently participate in a survey.

The survey is supported and funded by NatWest Group and will run for three months until the end of October. The first set of responses have been received, revealing several key take-outs which will now form a benchmark to report against every fortnight.

Access the barometer here

 

Reminder: Eat Out to Help Out registration is still open

It’s been three weeks since the UK Government announced details of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme which allows businesses offering food sold for immediate on-premises consumption the ability to pass on a 50% discount (up to £10 per person) to customers every Monday to Wednesday throughout August.

Recent media stories suggest that less than half of all cafes, pubs and restaurants eligible for the scheme have signed up. Therefore, if you have not already done so, we would encourage all of our eligible partners to sign up and help drive footfall back into our towns, cities and high streets during the quieter part of the week.

To register you will require your Government Gateway ID and password (you can create this when you register if not already done so) and business bank details. From 7 August, you can then reclaim the discounted amount through an online service supported by HMRC. Claims can be made on a weekly basis and will be paid into bank accounts within five working days.

Participating businesses will receive a window sticker and can download marketing items to help promote the offer to customers. Please also email Stuart.Aiken@marketingmanchester when you have registered so that we can include you in articles and social media posts about the scheme.

 

Manchester City Council Business Survey

Manchester City Council needs your views to help get Manchester back on the road to recovery.

The council have commissioned Ipsos MORI, an independent market research organisation, to undertake a survey of businesses from across the city and would like your input to help understand how they can get the city up and moving as quickly as possible.

If you can spare 15 minutes to tell them what you think, the council can use this information to speed up the recovery of our city. Visit ipsos.uk/ManchesterBusinessSurvey to take part.

 

Last chance to register: Tourism and Hospitality Talent Hub industry support webinar

Due to COVID-19 many businesses have been forced to reduce numbers within their current workforce and adapt to a new normal. Such drastic change can be incredibly difficult, and The Tourism and Hospitality Talent Hub is here to help you and your staff to navigate this period.

If you would like to hear more about the vast range of support the Growth Company and Marketing Manchester can offer to the tourism, hospitality and leisure industries, please join Margaret Bartnikiewicz, Employment Project Manager at the Tourism and Hospitality Talent Hub on our free webinar.

The webinar will take place at 11am, next Wednesday 5 August.

Sign up here.

For more information and general enquiries about the Tourism and Hospitality Talent Hub, please get in touch with Margaret Bartnikiewicz via email: talenthub@growthco.uk or call 07503 620815.

 

VisitEngland business recovery webinar programme

There’s still time to register for the final few sessions in VisitEngland’s series of recovery webinars to help you get back on track following the coronavirus pandemic. Coming up in August are several sessions focused on helping you to brush up on practical skills including creating great presentations, getting your business visible of Google and getting started with web analytics.

If you missed any of the webinars so far, you can watch them all back here.


Partner news you should know about

Some welcome news from our partners that we think you should know about:

Please email your news to press@marketingmanchester.com FAO of Andy Parkinson and also add this email address to your media/press distribution lists.



Tourism and Hospitality Support Hub

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis the Tourism and Hospitality Support Hub has been available to ensure that tourism and hospitality businesses are given the most up to date information including reopening standards and guidance. We have streamline the Hub to give the most useful information; however, we will continue to deliver the service throughout the reopening of the visitor economy and anyone who needs specific and detailed support should contact supporthub@marketingmanchester.com for bespoke help and advice.

Latest Links

Eat Out to Help Out

Self-Employment Income Support Scheme updates

  • Guidance on how HMRC works out trading profits and non-trading income
  • Guidance on how different circumstances affect the scheme

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) updates

A number of updates have been made to guidance on the CJRS:

  • New guidance has been published on claiming for inpiduals who are paid through PAYE
  • Guidance on calculating how much you can claim.
  • The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme guidance has been updated to clarify that notice periods being served by furloughed employees include contractual notice periods.

Providing apprenticeships during the coronavirus outbreak

  • Guidance has been updated to confirm that the flexibility to suspend level 2 functional skills for level 2 apprentices has been extended, and to provide more information on support for redundant apprentices.

Updated transport guidance

  • The Department for Transport has updated its travel and transport guidance with the ‘avoid public transport’ message removed. The collection of guidance can be found here.

Customer logging toolkit for businesses

  • Public Health England has published the Customer Logging Toolkit. This contains a variety of template materials for businesses to display, as well as guidance on how the policy works. Businesses should be storing the information securely for 21 days and sharing it with NHS Test and Trace if asked to do so. Businesses do not need to do anything else with the information.

Webinars

  • Government is hosting a series of free webinars for hospitality businesses and to hear your feedback on practical implementation, clarification and amendment needed:
    • Spa, gym and beauty 11am Tuesday 28 July Register here.
    • Restaurants, Pubs and Bars: 3pm, Tuesday 28 July Register here.
  • A new webinar on the Eat Out to Help Out scheme is also now available on multiple dates register here

HMRC support

  • If you have any detailed questions about the reduced rate of VAT you can contact:

Business rates system review: Call for evidence

As part of a fundamental review of the business rates system, the Government has put out a call for evidence from the industry. This call for evidence seeks views on how the business rates system currently works, issues to be addressed, ideas for change and a number of alternative taxes.

Responses should be submitted online and will be collected in two stages. Views on the multiplier and reliefs sections are requested by 18 September in order to inform an interim report in the autumn. Responses on all other sections are due by 31 October.

Reporting Outbreaks

Public Health England have launched a campaign to that provides advice to businesses on how to identify and respond to a local coronavirus outbreak. The campaign seeks to help business operators:

    • Identify an outbreak of COVID-19 (one or more confirmed case depending on the business or organisation)
    • Report the outbreak to local health protection team
    • Work with local health protection team to respond

https://coronavirusresources.phe.gov.uk/reporting-an-outbreak/overview/

Online Tools

The Government has updated three Online Assessment Tools to help businesses.

1. Business Support

This tool allows employers and the self-employed, including sole traders and limited company directors to determine their eligibility for loans, tax relief and cash grants.

https://www.gov.uk/business-coronavirus-support-finder

2. Business Risk Assessment

This tool is to help businesses operators develop a risk assessment tailored to the specific circumstances of their business and provides advice on how work practices can be changed to mitigate any risks identified.

https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus-business-reopening

3. Employee Risk Assessment

This tool is to help employees determine whether they should be going back to work or whether they should continue to work from home and includes advice specifically for tourism related businesses

https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus-employee-risk-assessment

 

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