Funding cuts to Visit Isle of Wight 'threatens tourism promotion'

Visit Isle of Wight said it could only fund essential marketing and its website until summer 2016.

Promoting the Isle of Wight as a holiday destination could suffer because of council funding cuts, tourism chiefs have warned.

The island's council has confirmed it is ending its annual £330,000 grant to the Visit Isle of Wight consortium.

Visit Isle of Wight said it was a "serious blow" to the the local tourism industry.

The authority said budget cuts meant it had to focus funding on its core legal responsibilities.

Visit Isle of Wight Ltd was set up three years ago as a Destination Management Organisation (DMO) involving the council and private bodies including ferry companies.

'Difficult decisions'

Its chairman, Simon Dabell, said the effect of the council withdrawing its funding "cannot be underestimated".

"We completely understand the situation the local authority finds itself in and that, due to severe financial constraints, it is having to make some difficult decisions that have a profound impact on Island life.

He said existing private finance and advertising revenue could only fund essential marketing and its website until summer 2016.

Tourism accounts for about a third of the island's economy - in 2013, 2.28m visitors contributed about £286m to the local economy.

A council spokesman blamed "financial pressures" for the decision to pull out of a nine-year deal to fund Visit Isle of Wight.

"The council increasingly has to focus only on its legal duties to protect vulnerable adults, protect and educate young people, maintain the roads network and collect waste; and although there is strong support for Visit Isle of Wight there is simply not the money to support it," he said.

He added the council would support an attempt to create a tourism Destination Business Improvement District as an alternative way of funding the promotion of the island.