INTERVIEW

Attractions are a vital part of the tourism mix in the south west. Talking Tourism magazine catches up with Jon Cummins, chair of the Cornwall Association of Tourist Attractions, who explains more.

Firstly, I think it would be useful for me to explain more about Cornwall Association of Tourist Attractions (CATA) for those who aren’t familiar with our network.

CATA was formed in 1974 to promote top-quality visitor experiences in the region. Today, the association comprises 39 of the best attractions in Cornwall, with a supportive network encouraging knowledge sharing and collective action.

Our member attractions range from iconic destinations such as St Michael’s Mount, the Eden Project and the Minack Theatre, to gems like Screech Owl Sanctuary, Geevor Tin Mine and Lappa Valley. We set a standard for industry excellence while also acting as a voice for the Cornish visitor attraction industry. Alongside this, we promote our members through strategic partnerships and public relations. The association employs two part-time members of staff who make our work possible. All the time that our members and directors invest is voluntary. Our public facing brand is Best Days Out Cornwall, under which we produce our promotional material. As I write we are on the cusp of launching a new website. As for me, my journey working in attractions started by fate. Through a chance meeting with a friend that at 16 I secured my first job parking cars at a local National Trust estate. In the 22 years since I stayed with my employer through university and then moved west. Having grown up in a rural area north of Bristol in a largely farming family, working for Europe’s largest conservation charity somehow felt like a natural fit. It still does.

Roles within visitor experience and membership took me to south and west Devon and to regional roles. Since 2014 my day job has been at three places as vsitor operations and experience manager: Trelissick, Trerice and Glendurgan. Representing these attractions at meetings gave me an introduction into the wider Cornish network and I joined the then CATA executive committee in 2017. Encouraged by the then chair, Jonathan Bray at Trebah, I was voted in as vice chair in 2018 and then chair in 2020 - two months before the Covid pandemic struck.

In a word, vital. Attractions play their part in welcoming visitors to the region, the experiences we provide help make memories and hopefully these together with the service we deliver gives a reason to return, or to visit another attraction. Some of our attractions are internationally renowned and provide reasons to visit Cornwall in themselves. In turn this generates support for the accommodation providers, the food and drink industry amongst others. It’s all very closely linked. Cornwall sees around five million staying visitors each year and 14 million day visitors each year, nearly all of whom travel through Devon, which then welcomes over five million visitors in its own right. CATA member attractions welcome in the

region of six million visitors per year – so as a group we are a significant player in the tourism industry and a major employer in Cornwall. As well as visitors to the Duchy we also welcome a huge number of local residents to our attractions. The support provided by our locals is vital to keeping our sector going yearround, especially through the traditional shoulder months – the development of so many successful Christmas and winter events shows that there is a real demand across the year. We work closely with other industry bodies such as Visit Cornwall and the Cornwall Chamber of Commerce to ensure our members are closely linked to important professional bodies who can provide them with the We are fortunate to right business expertise and knowledge to help them grow have a large number and thrive. of quality attractions IS THE DEMAND FOR in Cornwall TOURIST ATTRACTIONS

Some big questions there. In my experience, visitors’ expectations are constantly rising. As an industry we are competing for people’s spare time and disposable income. It’s rather stating the obvious but different audience groups want different experiences; family visitors to a theme park will probably different expectations to those heading to an art gallery, so as attractions we need to understand our visitors and change and adapt wherever we can. If we do things really well or don’t get it quite right, people will tell us much more readily than perhaps they would ten years ago, whether in person or online. Whatever the offer quality of experience and service are paramount to what we do in order to meet and exceed visitors’ expectations wherever we can. The demand for attractions is changing. Many have developed successful offers around Christmas in December and January, simply by understanding that’s what people want to enjoy. As businesses levelling out the peaks

and troughs of demand is obviously helpful in managing finances and helps provide more permanent year-round employment. People are also prepared to pay more for quality and exclusivity beyond their entry ticket. Experience packages have become more popular, and I suspect that trend will continue. As restrictions were imposed, changed or relaxed during the pandemic we’ve all had to adapt and change our lives to fit with a situation outside of our control and attractions needed to change the way in which we welcomed visitors on re-opening. In CATA we worked closely together to support each other with the introduction of booking systems, timed tickets, one-way systems etc. Out of this incredibly tough time have come some positives. As well as experiencing an incredibly busy period, some attractions have chosen to change their welcome more permanently by continuing to ask people to book in advance to help manage capacity and space.

Not in my view, at least not in peak months. We are fortunate to have a large number of quality attractions in Cornwall and our infrastructure is already stretched to the limit during the key trading periods around school holidays. I think the gap here is again around seasonality. On a high level this is about making Cornwall a more attractive destination during winter, for individual attractions it’s about building on our offer and seasonal events to give both locals and tourists a compelling reason to visit.

This is a real issue for our members. Some attractions have needed to offer wages far in excess of pre-pandemic levels to both recruit new and retain existing people. A high number of vacancies has at times impacted the service some of our members can provide. Some needed to simplify or close their food and drink or retail offers, shut areas of their attraction or adjust their opening hours as a result. If you can recruit the right individuals the question of affordability and location for housing often follows. This is now an issue for seasonal and permanent roles alike. The increase in house prices and rents in Cornwall has had a major impact on our members ability to recruit. How to overcome that is a challenge as we are dealing with market forces. Coming back to seasonality if we can develop that winter offer and create more permanent roles that will help recruit and retain staff, but there’s no quick solution. Some attractions also feel that Brexit has had a negative impact as it’s reduced the number of seasonal workers coming into the UK. I’m not sure how to solve that one…

In the face of these increased costs CATA members have been lobbying to keep the reduced rate of VAT for hospitality and working with our colleagues at Visit Cornwall and the Chamber of Commerce to add our voice to this argument. We fully support the UKHospitality campaign VATsEnough and have urged out members to lobby their local MPs to make the reduced VAT rate a permanent change.