Cruise business
- 7 September 2011 09:00125183Barry
thanks. This is what many have been looking for. I notice that Deal Chamber of Commerce have a regular feature in the local paper highlighting what they are doing and it might be useful for Dover's to do that too.
Lots of meetings over important issues but can you also point to the tangible stuff. What can we look at in Dover and say "The chamber of commerce got that for the town"? - 7 September 2011 09:05125184P.S. Just looked at Deal's website and it is much more user friendly and gives a real flavour of what the chamber has/is doing and of the community in which it is based.
- 7 September 2011 09:16125190Mark - if only it was as simple as saying that. The fact is that you work on many front and try to advance incrementally. Success comes only when you are part of a bigger 'voice' and then you cannot simple define it as 'the Chamber of Commerce got so and so..." The Chamber key successes are in the small things that are major for the businesses concerned. The coffee shops who we helped with a rate review, the start-up helped with advice on a business plan and so on. These things are every-day stuff.
Deal Chamber of Trade, who you mention, have representation on our Board because the Dover Chamber covers the whole Dover District. They serve only the businesses in Deal town, primarily traders, while the District Chamber serves a much broader category of business from Sandwich through to Capel and out to Aylesham. The same kind of advert feature would not work for us the same way though you are right that it is an important initiative for the Deal traders. Hopefully if a funding bid comes through and once our new Dover Town Traders liaison group, chaired by Mike McFarnell, really gets into its stride such a feature for Dover traders might be realistic. - 7 September 2011 09:19125191Mark - You mentioned the website - DDCC one will be more frequently updated from now on after a decision yesterday and improvements are happening as we speak, I have had two emails only this morning on it! Longer term it needs a further upgrade but before that we need to make what we have work better.
- 7 September 2011 17:28125272Thanks Barry.
- 7 September 2011 23:11125317Roger, re your remarks in #39:
"In your posting, you mention that Dover has benefited from enormous investment from the tax-payer amounting to billions of pounds and that the largest was the Admiralty Harbour a century ago. Has the taxpayer paid large sums into Dover Harbour Board in recent years do you know ?"
No, there is no reason to. Immense sums from the national purse have been invested in Dover over the centuries for defence reasons, far and away the largest investment being the encircling breakwaters of the Admiralty Harbour. The Navy departed and handed the harbour over to DHB in 1926, returning of course for WW2. DHB has inherited the advantage of all this taxpayer funded infrastructure and all the profits made from it have been continuously reinvested giving us the great sprawl of the Eastern Docks and all the other developments.
"I don't think the argument is over a few million quid, more that Liverpool will take a lot of business from Dover and the Town, the businesses here and of course, the Harbour Board - all will suffer."
There are ports all round the country attempting to attract calls by cruise ships. Liverpool has a tremendous maritime history and was a major transatlantic liner port until it lost most of the trade to Southampton. It deserves to have a bite of the cherry and is sufficiently remote from Dover that I doubt that it will have very much impact.
"If we aren't careful, Calais will take business from us too, when it's cruise terminals are finished. Lots more reasons why the Town needs brightening up now and moving forward - and I'm not just talking about the big regeneration projects, although they are very important."
I think there is only a single cruise berth contemplated in the Calais Port 2015 plans. One imagines that, as with Liverpool, it will cater largely for passengers from the hinterland, and port calls for passengers wishing to see a bit of France. We can hardly begrudge them this and again I would not expect it to have much effect on Dover. - Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
8 September 2011 06:11125318dover in its self has been a military port on and of over the years and since the last war [ww2] has become a transit port,both for people traverling to and from france.only in the recent years has it become a cruise port as well,with this in mind dover has not transpired into a holding port ie.people staying overnight before moving on.caen in france [normandy area] has its apeall for obvious reasons and hav capterlised on the history there,where as dover hasent.but before us residents of dover gets to up set its not us as the public to praise and raise the towns profile,thats down to the ddc/dtc,chamber of comerse and the tourist department to promote the towns benifits. - 8 September 2011 07:21125322We also have a part-time self-employed marketing consultant who, among other things, organises golf days (valuable networking at which business is done) and sells advertising in our diary.
Last edited at 7:16am on 07/09/11 by BarryW
I am sorry to have had a giggle at this comment.....it is a bit like all the big wigs rushing to take the train journey the Fast Link from Deal/Sandwich......
It was always known in the Town, the Dover Harbour Board was a "Charity" and could not show any profit...hence the ploughing backof any profit into the Harbour, and never into the town......
Oh, how I wish and still do the opportunity to have combined the two had been a success...........
Dover Town its shabbyness/sadness etc...is known everywhere..the brand is shoddy..........
Ear to the ground, if you ask people why there are not so many Cruise ships/boats moored...etc....it is always said....Oh, the Harbour Board put the fees up....
The Ferries have always been the Cash Cows, and even they are not happy .....if the Dover Harbour Board has to work at anything Commercial, to show imagination, it is a disaster....they only take and never give.....shocking crowd in charge at the moment.
Now, everywhere is like a bomb site.....perhaps they should look at how the town was before the last bombings and study those maps.....
Not good is it?.....and the people who are paid so much money etc to do something just keep failing........................ - 8 September 2011 07:47125331Charlie Norman - Am I to assume you don't like golf and don't believe business gets done that way?
Golf is not my thing. I really cannot get interested in walking around a field trying to hit a tiny ball into a hole half a mile away that is nearly as small with some long odd shaped bat. That said, I know many in my industry who swear by networking over golf to gain business and it has been suggested to me I should do it many times. It does work.
Personally I prefer breakfast. I gain most of my business by going to breakfast every week. It works for me and the 40 business people I mix with every week generating around £800,000 for me over the last 14 years.
Don't make fun of what you don't understand. - 15 September 2011 20:34126632back on the news tonight with david foley taking a petition to downing street on behalf of dover and southampton.
all the movers and shakers are involved here.
- 16 September 2011 06:58126647Good spot there Howard didnt realise anything like that was on. Good pix. That I guess is David Foley making the case as he did on our frontpage last week, now Copy 196 in our All Recent Features, saved there with our very own Ed Connell's alternative vision.
David Foley is of course CEO of Dover Chamber of Commerce...just thought I would mention that in case anyone is not up to speed.email: dover7@msn.com - 16 September 2011 09:38126656and also chief executive officer of thanet and east kent chamber of commerce.
- 17 September 2011 01:34126776It makes no sense for a great port such as Liverpool to be unable to offer turnround facilities for cruise ships. I imagine that the taxpayer contribution will be sorted out and that Liverpool will rightly handle a share of this trade, and that attempts by Southampton and Dover to suppress competition will come to nothing.
As I have said, Dover is in no position to criticise taxpayer support since the vast sums expended on the port by the government over the years, plus Trust Port status, have been of such immense value in delivering the hugely successful port we have today.
Interesting to note that the item above quotes the potential loss to Kent's economy as being £20m a year, this for losing a fraction of the cruise ship turnrounds handled by Dover. This would not seem to square with BarryW's frequent contentions that the Town of Dover gets nothing from the Port of Dover. Perhaps he needs to have a word with David Foley as they do not appear to be singing from the same songsheet.
