Critique of Redland City’s Event Strategy and Action Plan 2017-2022

Abstract

The aim of this report is to critique Redland City’s Event Strategy and Action Plan 2017-2022. It investigates the political landscape of Australia and the political ideologies at the time the strategy was written it is then linked to the strategy. The report then looks at the stakeholders involved and how they plan to implement, monitor and evaluate their strategy. While critiquing this strategy recommendations have been made on areas which they could improve on, supported by academic references.

Contents

Abstract

Introduction

The Political Landscape and Political Ideologies of chosen policy

Development and strategy of policy and reference to key stakeholders

Implementation, Evaluation and Monitoring of Strategy

Recommendations

Conclusion

References

Appendix

Introduction

This report will critique Redland City’s Event Strategy and Action Plan 2017-2022. Redland City is located in the southeast area if Brisbane, Australia. An event policy is difficult to define as there are so many different aspects to it, however, usually has key characteristics within it. Event policies will usually contain legislation, benefits of the event, stakeholders, issues, opportunities and many other aspects. (Getz, 2013) Critiquing the policy will be done by using support from academic sources to see what the policy is doing well and what they could improve on. It will look further into political landscape and ideologies, stakeholders and implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the strategy. A list of recommendations will also then be made. Event policies are such an important part for everyone involved to have a full understanding of because they are so vital in the process of hosting events and potentially regenerating an area.

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The Political Landscape and Political Ideologies of chosen policy

The Australian parliament is made up of, the queen (who is represented by the govern general), the senate and the house of representatives. The house of representatives is represented by the party which holds the majority, the coalition or governing party which holds the most power. Malcolm Turnbull became prime minister of Australia in 2015, he was the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. This party lean more towards the right and support the idea of a capitalist society. They would be the comparable to the British Conservative Party. (Prepare for Australia, 2015) In 2016 the government was a coalition formed by the Liberal Party of Australia and the Australian National Party, Malcolm Turnbull remained prime minister. In 2016 a double dissolution election was called. This can be called when the government are unable to pass legislation through the senate. It then means that both The House of Representatives and the Senate are dissolved, then an election will be called. This election is not like a regular election, when only half of the members of senate will be up for election. A double dissolution means that the entire senate vacates for election. (Powell Tate, 2017)

Political ideologies are the beliefs, opinions and values of a political party. (Getz, 2013) In 2016 one of the Liberal Party Australia’s main focuses was to increase the tourism within Australia. They noticed that China was one of their man tourist markets and so to maintain and improve this they created air service agreements between Australia and China. They also opened secondary airports between the two destinations. As well, they made trade agreements with Japan, China and Korea. The agreements were aimed to help boost tourism in Australia. Another aim of the party was to create better and more accessible digital services. There are roughly 12.9 million internet subscribers in Australia. They believe that by investing in better digital technology it will allow businesses to advance the quality and accessibility of services. Also, another main focus in 2016 was to increase jobs and growth in regions all across Australia. They wanted to create new jobs across various different sectors. (Liberal Party of Australia, 2016)

Although Redland City’s Event Strategy does not directly state any of these as their main aims, they do mention that they would like to attract more tourism to the Redland’s area. This location has competitive advantages when it comes to events for example, they have nice remote bay/island locations which would be suitable for water activities, it has unique culture and heritage, also, it’s natural assets can supply an original background for events. It is quite a rural area in which they would like to have an increase in tourism however, not sure they have the infrastructure required. As well, the advancements in digital services would benefit and link to the events strategy. This is because it could help with social media, internet and media coverage of events in Redland. As on of the main focuses of the Liberal Party of Australia was to increase jobs and growth then it would link in well with Redland’s strategy as they hope it will increase job opportunities for the local community and give them the opportunity to upskill.  (Redland City Council, 2016)

Development and strategy of policy and reference to key stakeholders

The term stakeholder can refer to anyone that may be involved or participates in something. (Bonnafous-Boucher, 2016) There are 3 different types of stakeholders, they come under public, private and third. Public stakeholders can be communities, media, volunteers or suppliers. Third sector stakeholders can include universities or charities.

Redland City’s Event Strategy has many different stakeholders that are involved. In their strategy they mention the stakeholder’s that they recognise as being involved with the strategy and split them up into the action/tasks that they will be involved in. They mention stakeholders such as the council, Redlands’s tourism subcommittee, Department of Transport and Main Roads, event organisers, local suppliers, local venues, tourism operators, Brisbane marketing and many more. There are often multiple different stakeholders involved in the actions required. These come under the public stakeholders as they don’t mention many private or third-party stakeholders. All of these stakeholders will play key roles in the implementation of the strategy however, it does not mention how much influence they have had during the creation of the strategy. (Redland City Council, 2016)

Redland city have mentioned that they recognise the local community should play a key role in contributing to the event strategy and supporting the actual event. They also recognise that using locals would provide training opportunities and the chance to upskill them. Although they mention getting support from the local community, they don’t mention directly how they are going to involve them. (Redland City Council, 2016) The local community can be the volunteers at an event, interact with attendees, show/highlight the culture of the area to other attendees, improve the atmosphere and encourage people to visit again. Locals will be more inclined to do all of this if they feel that they have been consulted during both the creation and implementation of the strategy. If locals do not feel that they have been consulted, then it could cause issues such as they won’t want to volunteer to work at the event. This could then lead to the event team having to outsource volunteers, this would then mean that they don’t have the local’s knowledge, they won’t know the surroundings as well and won’t be able to showcase the local culture. Events are able to showcase the image created by the local community. (Roche, 2000) It is becoming more recognised and better practiced now that local communities should be involved in the decision-making process for events. For example, recently Calgary citizens were given the opportunity to vote whether or not they would like to host the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. The results came in that 56% of those who voted, voted no to hosting. Citizens felt that it would cost too much to upgrade the buildings they had proposed to use. Due to the no vote, city council then had a vote and decided to cancel the bid. (The Calgary Press, 2018) This is a prime example of involving and listening to the community that would be involved and affected. Another example of local community inclusion is the Melbourne Commonwealth Games 2006, they came up with a scheme “Getting Involved”. This was created so that each council involved could develop activities which would reinforce a community bond.  (Foley, 2012)

Implementation, Evaluation and Monitoring of Strategy

Redland City’s event strategy contains an action plan in which it has all of the steps they feel they require to complete to understand future opportunities to accomplish the goals which they have set within the events strategy. This is an appropriate way to plan as Getz says that planning is a process in that involves companies setting achievable goals and create tasks which will allow them to achieve these. (Getz, 2013) Different opportunities have been identified which they intend to take advantage of and the action plan contains the way in which they plan on achieving these opportunities. They have split the action plan into 3 different sections which are, infrastructure opportunities, event promotion and networking opportunities and event coordination, development and investment opportunities. (See appendix 1) The table contains 5 columns which are, action, tasks, responsibility/stakeholders, time-frame and key performance indicators. The action is what they plan to do, tasks are how they are going to do it, the responsibility/stakeholders is who should be involved in completing these tasks. The time-frame is split into either short-term which is within the next 2 year (2017/2018) and medium-term which is within the following three years (2019 onwards). Finally, key performance indicators contain jobs which they expect to be completed and when they expect it to be completed by. This is a very efficient way of laying it out and being able to see what has to be completed, who by and when. The strategy also contains their vision and where they expect they will be in 5 years-time. In 2022 when the strategy should be implemented it would be a good chance to look at this section and check if everything has been accomplished. (Redland City Council, 2016)

Having an action plan will be a good way to monitor how they are getting on with the strategy as they can check to see whether these have been completed in the time-frame given or not. Monitoring the work is important as it means progress can be checked If tasks are being completed on time, then it would suggest that they are getting on well with the strategy and if not, they can check whose responsibility it is and find out why it is not being completed. As part of evaluating they have mentioned that they are going to evaluate the event impacts, focusing on economic, social and environmental impacts. It is important to measure these impacts of an event especially the economic impact as it will look at areas of cost-benefit analysis. This is the cost of hosting an event compared to the income gained and visitors spending. This will be able to show how economically beneficial the event has been to a destination. (Foley, McGillivray & McPherson, 2009)

Recommendations

Conclusion

In conclusion, critiquing the Redland City events strategy and action plan found that it is well written and contains many of they key aspects that theory suggests within an event policy. These include opportunities, implementation, SWOT, stakeholders and issues. The strategy goes into in-depth detail about all of these areas and ensures that as much information that can be is provided. However, although it was written well there are some areas for improvement. Recommendations have been made to help solve them, all recommendations were supported by academic sources, the theory suggests vital parts that should be included in policy. The recommendations suggested would help to enhance the strategy and ensure that it is following more what theory proposes. 

References

• BONNAFOUS-BOUCHER, M., 2016. Stakeholder theory : a model for strategic management. RENDTORFF, J.D. ed., Switzerland: Springer.
• FOLEY, M., MCGILLIVRAY, D. & MCPHERSON, G., 2009. Policy, politics and sustainable events. CABI Publishing.
• FOLEY, M., 2012. Event policy from theory to strategy. MCGILLIVRAY, D.&MCPHERSON, G. eds., Routledge.
• GETZ, D., 2013. Event Studies. London: Taylor & Francis Group Available from: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gcal/detail.action?docID=1154280.
• JACKSON, N.A., 2013. Promoting and marketing events : theory and practice. 1st ed. ed. New York: Routledge.
• LIBERAL PARTY OF AUSTRALIA., 2016. 2016 Election Policies [viewed 2/10/18]. Available from: https://www.liberal.org.au/our-policies.
• POWELL TATE., 2017. Understanding the Australian Political Landscape. [viewed 24/10/18]. Available from: http://powelltate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Understanding-The-Australian-Political-Landscape.pdf.
• PREPARE FOR AUSTRALIA., 2015. Political parties in Australia. [viewed 2/10/2018]. Available from: http://www.prepareforaustralia.com.au/living-australia/politics-economy/political-parties.aspx.
• REDLAND CITY COUNCIL., 2016. Redland City Events Strategy and Action Plan. Available from:
• ROCHE, M., 2000. Mega-events and modernity : Olympics and expos in the growth of global culture. London: Routledge.
• THE CALGARY PRESS. 2018. Calgary city council votes to shut down bid for 2026 Winter Games, 20/11/.

Appendix