How Manchester’s formerly negative image led to missed opportunities
Tue ,06/06/2006Article by Phil Blinkhorn
A little under 30 years ago, the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the City and County Councils jointly sought ways to promote the economic region in the leisure and business tourism markets.
After almost two years of discussions and planning, the County established a Conference and Exhibitions Office, the City, shortly afterwards, a Tourism Promotions Office.
The units were complimentary, one aimed at the business sector, the other at individual and group leisure tourism and both, over the eight or so years that followed – until the dissolution of the GMC, succeeded in bring a great deal of lucrative new business to the region.
There were, of course, problems. The hotel stock was not of the best. The premier hotels in the city, in 1978, were below par. The Midland’s elegance had faded, the Grand certainly was not and the latest addition, the Piccadilly, was blighted by the poor visual approach and the failure of the Plaza shopping area to attract permanent and attractive tenants. In the wider area the hotel stock needed attention and the marketing of venues and attractions needed either updating or, at worst, designing from scratch.
The biggest problem faced was deeper seated and wider ranging. The world’s perception of Manchester was of a grimy, industrial city. Most of the inhabitants could not conceive of people actually wishing to come to the area and a great deal of negative media coverage was generated along the lines of both Councils wasting money.
Even eminent Mancunians were negative – until the really lucrative business arrived.
Part of the process of establishing an image for the area involved a great deal of research on how Manchester people, products and institutions had influenced the UK and the wider world and how much this was known.
Surveys were undertaken both locally and abroad to test peoples’ knowledge of Manchester. The results were depressingly negative with little knowledge of the place of Manchester in history.
After leaving the area in 1986 I lived for 12 years in Sussex, a great deal of which I spent dealing with “London†based companies and institutions. During that time Manchester made and failed in two Olympic bids and I had to endure the scathing comments of Home Counties based Londoncentrics who had little perception of the UK outside of their daily trip to “Town†on the train.
When the Commonwealth Games was won by Manchester, the victory hardly registered on the streets of the Capital or amongst the commuters crammed nose to nose on the Tube or the overcrowded trains rattling towards Kent and Sussex.
Now all of this had long been put to the back of my mind until my wife bought me Stuart Prebble’s Grumpy Old Men – The Secret Diary this Christmas.
In an otherwise excellent book Stuart, who spent some time in Manchester as a producer and as editor of World in Action, castigates the British for supporting and believing in Tim Henman and compares the hopes of his fans with those of the people of Manchester in bidding against Atlanta for the 1996 Olympics. In scathing terms he makes it plain that, compared to Atlanta, Manchester didn’t have anything to offer.
I’m not sure if, or how often, Mr P has been to Atlanta. I have visited a few times on business and pleasure, before and after 1996, including a memorable trip during the bidding when my then 16 year old daughter walked around Hartsfield Airport and Downtown Atlanta proudly wearing her “…and God invented MANchester†T shirt.
Atlanta is a pleasant city, in no way exceptional, with a city population of 394,000 and a metropolitan area of 2.96 million (1996 figures). Manchester had, at that time, 440,000 inhabitants in the city and 2.57 million in the metropolitan area.
Their hotel and other lodging facilities were very similar to Manchester, the downtown area is similar in size, the sports facilities, in being and planned, were similar and the transport systems were not too different (MARTA – the rapid transit in Atlanta – being more extensive than the Metro).
Their massive airport then had fewer long haul services than Manchester, its size being built around one major carrier – Delta.
Apart from sunshine – and some pretty horrendous thunderstorms – what Atlanta had over Manchester was the tacit and sometimes blatant help of the US Government, a self belief deep rooted in the US citizenry that to support any US city was better than losing the games to another country plus the money and influence of Coca Cola and CNN (who provide the only real tourist attractions in the city) and Delta.
In comparison we had almost total disinterest from the Thatcher Government (as happened later with the Sydney bid under Major), lack of belief from UK citizens and, despite some Herculean efforts from the bid team, many Mancunians never really believed enough in themselves or their area to be ambassadors and make the bid work.
Of course the Commonwealth Games proved what could be done with a Government and the people as a whole behind a bid (Mr Prebble seems to have missed that success) but the fact remains that even today’s Mancunians often hide their achievements and potential and submit to the supposed predominance of the South East of England.
Had the 1996 bid had half the effort available that the London Olympic bid received, Manchester would have beaten Atlanta, no question.
Over the coming months, as time and space allow, I intend to highlight some of the world influencing achievements of Manchester in fields as diverse as politics, sport, industry, transport and science. Some will be well known, others less so but all should be a source of pride to those who were born, have moved to, or even away from, the area.
In terms of geography (and I’m not entering the old argument about county boundaries and the 1974 re-arrangements) for the purposes of these articles Manchester will mean the county boundary of the GMC as at 1974. I take as my template the way the name attached to the square mile City of London has swallowed up adjoining boroughs and villages, a city, vast tracts of Kent, Essex, Surrey and Hertfordshire and the whole of Middlesex.
I won’t go so far as to encompass the whole of the Northwest in a kind of Mancunian Home Counties but I ask for tolerance if I have to visit parts of the 1974 defined Lancashire, Cheshire and Derbyshire to make a point.
If you have a Manchester Achievement you believe should be highlighted, please contact the writer via the website.
After an early career in industrial sales in 1976 he was appointed as Sales and Marketing Manager at Belle Vue. In 1978 he was appointed as Greater Manchester Conference Officer. He opened the Greater Manchester Conference Office which was successful in bringing major national and international conference and exhibition business to the region in his 6 year tenure. He was also involved in the planning of G-Mex.
He was a member of the Arrangements Committee for the 1982 Papal Visit being in charge of VIP reception and was also the person responsible for suggesting the Pope be served Black Pudding for breakfast – as the convent in which the Pope breakfasted was in Bury – a suggestion that was carried through.
In 1986 he left the Manchester area for East Sussex where, in 1989, he set up his own company which until his retirement in 1998 specialised in conferences on various aspects of aviation working closely with governments and the industry and operating events in the UK, Europe, Asia and the USA.
Retiring to County Kerry in 1998, he pursues his hobbies of aviation photography, aviation and transport history and has a keen interest in anything to do with Manchester.