New marketing body created to promote city and boost tourism

A NEW marketing body is to be created to promote the Capital which will cost £235,000 before it even starts operating.

Marketing Edinburgh is being set up following the merger of three different bodies: the Destination Edinburgh Marketing Alliance (Dema), Edinburgh Convention Bureau (ECB) and Edinburgh Film Focus.

The search for a chief executive for the body, reportedly to be paid a salary of more than 100,000, is due to get under way within weeks.

The changes come only 18 months after Dema was formally created, and it is set to spend two-thirds of its money in the first year on overheads rather than city promotion.

Dema will also move out of its rent-free office at the city council's Waverley Court and into a new 110,000-a-year office expected to be secured "on the periphery of the city centre", which will become the new Marketing Edinburgh headquarters.

One-third of the 235,000 set-up costs are to be funded by the council directly, with the remainder met from existing budgets of the ECB and Dema.

It is hoped that the new company will be operational in time for the financial year starting next April.

Nearly two-thirds of its 2.2 million first-year budget is expected to be spent on overheads like staff costs, rent, business rates and IT, with only 824,000 expected to be left for actual marketing activity.

Councillor Jason Rust, economic development spokesman for the Conservative group on the city council, said: "The idea is a good one, but it would be a great shame if internal costs use up a lot of the money. This is supposed to be an all-singing and all-dancing new body and that is not what was wanted."

A new chief executive is to be appointed, replacing existing Dema boss Kenneth Wardrop.

The total annual budget for promoting Edinburgh currently stands at 2m, well below some rival cities like Birmingham, which has an 8.9m budget, and Glasgow, at 4.9m.

Marketing Edinburgh said it expects its core council funding to fall from 1.24m next year to 1m in 2013/14, but it aims to treble the value of contributions from the private sector to its campaigns, from 500,000 next year to 1.5m in 2013/14.

A spokesman for Marketing Edinburgh said funds for promotion were expected to rise above overheads by year three.

VisitScotland chief executive Malcolm Roughead said: "Tourism has the potential to lead economic recovery in Scotland and it is crucial we work together to make the most of these opportunities."