Inside the States

Jersey schools have already broken up for Easter, and there are just a few days to go until the bank holiday weekend.

But, can we expect a busy weekend for tourism in the island?

Well there's already been some concern from people in the industry about the percentage of enquiries that are being converted into actual bookings this year.

David De Carteret is Jersey's Director of Tourism and he is optimistic ahead of the Easter break.

He said: “I think bookings are looking good for this Easter. We’ve picked up a little bit in the last couple of weeks so I think the industry is feeling quiet confident that bookings are now beginning to flow in a little more quickly than they were earlier.

“The weather is nice so let’s hope that continues over Easter and we’ll see where that takes us.

“I think we’re optimistic, there is still a lot of work to be done, we haven’t yet caught up to last years levels but the gap is closing slowly. There is a lot of confidence out there that we can do better.”

Thinking about a visit

Research earlier this year with people who'd been enquiring about holidaying to Jersey, found 72% of prospective visitors are still considering coming to the island, but have not actually booked yet. 

So, last month Jersey Tourism used a "mystery shopper" to try and find out why those enquiries aren't being converted into firm bookings...

David De Carteret explained: “It was a piece of research we designed in the wake of enquiry levels being significantly up earlier on this year and booking levels appearing to be down.

The Zutons at Jersey Live 2008

“One of the things we were concerned about was whether enquiries were being made but perhaps they weren’t being handled in the right way.

“The piece of mystery shopper was designed to consider what was happening when people contacted hotels, tour operators or indeed the airlines to see exactly what was happening and whether we were dealing with those enquiries as best as we could.”

Mystery shopper

The mystery shopper would pretend to make a booking to see how the call is handled. This then allows tourism to find out whether they were ”performing as well as we should.”

David went on to explain that: “the result was very good and in the main our properties performed particularly well and we were very pleased with it.

“There were some learning points we are going to put in place. We need to do a little bit more in terms of closing the sale, in other words offering a closure at the end of a particular enquiry.

“Be a bit more pushy and to actually try to close it down and take an option or to send a brochure on. That sort of thing where we actually get more details from the client rather than just answer what the client was asking.”

More training

He told BBC Jersey that: “There are some lessons to be learnt from this and particularly we are going to run some training later on in the year.

“We’re going to work on some specific training courses on sales skills for people within the industry. Most of that is going to be targeted really at people answering the phone.

“Be it reservation clerks, receptionists within hotels, clerks within the travel industry and so on. The idea being to try and get them a little bit sharper in terms of closing down the deal.”

Public private partnership

There are also plans for a new public private partnership designed to promote the industry in place. This should be in place in time for the summer season.

Bathing Pool Image: Jersey Tourism

The politician leading the scrutiny of the idea says businesses are pushing to have a tourism equivalent of Jersey Finance as soon as possible.

Currently Jersey's finance industry is promoted internationally by the public private partnership Jersey Finance, which is funded by donations from private companies and a much larger amount from the States.

It's thought a similar partnership for the tourism industry would be more responsive to the needs of businesses than the current States body Jersey Tourism.

Tourism's existing budget and staff would transfer across to the public private partnership where they would continue to work on promoting Jersey hospitality.

St Clement - Pow Pow (Prix d'Excellence)

Deputy Mike Higgins is the politician chairing the review of the plans. He says the States would be investing around five million pounds.

He says he's not convinced businesses would be contributing enough to the partnership to make the arrangement fair.

Have your say

What do you think can be done to encourage and increase tourism in the island? Should more money be put into large events like Jersey Live and the Branchage Film Festival? Or should it be spent on infrastructure?

Do you agree with the planned move from a state run tourism department to a public private partnership? Or will nothing make a difference until flights and hotel prices can be brought down?