Birmingham % London Citichat 2 March 2001

CITICHAT 8/2001 - 2 March 2001


Birmingham & London

Arising from our proposal to establish a City Tourism Orientation and Information Centre, (Citichat 6, 16th February) we invited a number of people from a variety of tourism related organisations to attend a meeting last week to discuss our proposals and to get input. Not surprising in this day and age, less than half of those who confirmed that they would be attending, actually came. Notwithstanding that, it was a good initial meeting when we were able to hear the views of not only tour guides but also those representing institutions such as the Museums and Art Gallery. The outcome of the meeting was very supportive of what we are planning to do and particularly of the proposal to produce a tourism plan for the city.

Immediately following the meeting I had to leave for a very quick trip to the UK on personal business and to Washington DC to attend a weekend leadership workshop being run by IDA (International Downtown Association). I did however squeeze in the opportunity to visit appropriate tourism related institutions in Birmingham, London and DC.

The Birmingham City Council has evidently quite recently established a specific group within their Economic Development Department to focus on City Tourism. It was interesting to hear that one of the major problems that they are dealing with is similar to ourselves in that it relates to perceptions. The general perception of the city relates to its "smokestack" past for Birmingham was always known as the British centre for manufacturing and industry. Over the past few decades it has however developed world class facilities in its International Convention Centre, National Exhibition Centre, Symphony Hall, National Indoor Arena, National Sea Life Centre and many cultural and sporting institutions. The physical appearance of the city has been transformed from the gray industrial city of yesteryear by way of extensive pedestrianisation, redeveloping the canal system and transforming the massive elevated concrete freeway down to grade wherever possible. The Jewellery Quarter has become an important attraction and there are some massive private sector regeneration projects and the city now really offers a great deal of interest to vistors. But still the perceptions! Now, following broad consultation, a detailed Tourism Strategy has been developed around a Vision to "develop Birmingham as a high-quality vibrant destination for regional, U.K., European and international business and leisure tourists, in partnership with the private, cultural and community sectors of the City and the region." A Strategic Framework and detailed Action Plans are in place and are being vigorously pursued with the whole issue of changing perceptions always a critical consideration.

In London I spent some hours at the London Museum which offers a detailed "walk-through" the history of that great city. It provides an excellent overview of London's growth and development through photographs, artifacts, models and often full size representations in what I would describe as a rather 'traditional' museum offering.

In Washington DC I found the innovation which we are aiming to bring to our local project although ours will be on a tiny scale in comparison! There the local council has leased to The Historical Society of Washington D.C. (for $1 per annum for 99 years) what was previously known as the Carnegie Library which is a magnificent historic building situated in the city on Mount Vernon Square. The Society is planning to restore the building as a City Museum, but as they point out, "not just another museum, but a new kind of museum - reaching into the past, touching the future, making the spectator a participant and the visitor a creator of his own experience." The Executive Director of the Historical Society, Barbara Franco, feels passionately that the life and history of a city cannot be told within the confines of one building. It is the city itself that is the museum "with neighbourhoods as its galleries and people and buildings as its exhibits." The City Museum will therefore be an introduction and orientation to the city for its visitors offering an 'experience' rather than a series of exhibits. Which is exactly what we are aiming for although, as I said previously, on a minute scale in comparison due to both the size of the facility we have and the lack of budget. Hopefully we will get the authorities to buy in and support our efforts.

To end with some urban trivia from three articles that caught my eye in the British press during the couple of days I was there. The first was a report that the Queen was to open Portcullis House, a new office building to house MPs built over the road from the Houses of Parliament. This has been quite a controversial building from both a design and certainly from a cost point of view. It has now been established that it is the most expensive office accommodation per user in the world costing one million pounds (twelve million rand) per occupant! Costs include nearly two million rand for "decorative fig trees imported from Florida"; two and a half million rand for potted plants and a reclining chair complete with a 'snooze' position for every MP at R5 000 each. From what I've seen of British MPs on the tele, I thought they did all their snoozing in the House itself!

The second was a report that the earnings of Ken Livingstone, the new Executive Mayor of London have "hit the 250 000 pound a year mark (three million rand). This is made up of his salary as mayor, after dinner speeches and his column in the Independent newspaper. I think our new Executive Mayor will have his hands full enough without these latter activities!

The third was a rejection by journalist Simon Jenkins of a city 'quality of life' survey in which London had dropped from 35th to 40th place in a ranking of 215 cities. The top cities were evidently Vancouver and Zurich with Vienna and Copenhagen close behind and Dublin, Helsinki, Dusseldorf and Luxembourg all scoring higher than London. Rejecting the criteria that the survey was evidently based on which included crime and grime, cost of living, traffic congestion, etc., the writer offers his own 'league-table criteria'. He begins with 'crude popularity' and the net rate of increase in population. He adjusts this by the pace of inward migration by economically active foreigners and the appeal of the city to 'those lifestyle connoisseurs, overseas students'. Another indicator of vitality he uses is a count of the indigenous gay community. To all of this he adds the number of Old Masters on gallery walls, the percentage of high street premises used for eating, the number of live performances on stage per night, the aggregate of club hours open after 1a.m. and the street price of recreational narcotics. He then factors in the buoyancy of the private housing market loading the index towards the more expensive properties and in order to balance that last point (lest his survey be considered too up-market), he introduces the number of times the city is mentioned by Afghan, Kurdish or Kosovan asylum seekers wrecked off the coast of France, 'their ear being closest to the economic ground out of sheer necessity'. He concludes; "The Swiss survey remarks that the "best performing cities…run efficiently and on time" That is their bias in a nutshell. My index discounts the smooth running, the clean and the culturally stagnant. And if it fails to put London top and New York second, then I will alter the figures. As for today's survey winners, I can only plead Orson Welles in the Third Man; "Five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did it produce….? The cuckoo clock." This is a survey for world cuckoo-clock salesmen."

Doesn't look as though we'd cut it on either set of criteria, time we dreamt up our own!