Information, Advice and Guidance on Covid 19

Useful Links

For research on the impacts of Covid, please see our webpage 2020 Covid Research here.

Omicron Hospitality and Business Grants

Torbay Council will be administering these grants and have now received guidance from Government about the one-off business grant for Hospitality and Leisure businesses impacted by the Omicron variant.

Torbay Council are now working through the new guidance and hope to have the scheme open for applications very soon.

They are focussing on launching this one-off hospitality and leisure grant scheme first, and as they have done in the past and will assess the gaps in support before launching details of any additional discretionary funds available.

To see if your business is eligible for the Omicron Leisure and Hospitality Grant please check the Government criteria here.Further details about the scheme and how to apply will be announced as soon as possible.

Please be assured that Torbay Council know how critical these grants are and maximum resources are being assigned to get the scheme open ASAP.

You will need to apply as you did for the COVID Restart Grants.

Payments will not be automatic to protect against fraud and this process is dictated by Government.

As soon as we hear that the Torbay Council website is open for applications we will update this page.

You may also like to monitor Torbay Council’s Web Site for further announcements.

Financial Support – January 2021

There are grants available for businesses that have been required to close due to, or have been affected by, National or Local Lockdown restrictions.

These grants remain available all the time Torbay is affected by; National restrictions, Tier 2, Tier 3 or Tier 4 restrictions.

There are currently grants available covering;

Current grants and payment statuses
Period	Payment status
National Lockdown: 5 November to 2 December	£2.4m+ has now been paid
Tier 2 restrictions: 3 to 30 December	Top up payments are currently being paid for this date range and expected to be completed by 29 January
Tier 3 restrictions: 31 December to 4 January	Payments will be combined with the instalment for the 5 January national lockdown
National Lockdown: 5 January onwards	One instalment will be paid for a 6-week period covering 5 January – 15 February. Payments will be starting 27 January.
January Lockdown Grants: One off payment of £4k – £9k	Payments are expected to start as soon as possible. A further update will be posted before 1 February.

Please see Torbay Council’s website for more information.

Good To Go

It is absolutely essential that we make our visitors feel safe. The English Riviera is leading the way with this with an impressive 327 local Tourism and Hospitality Businesses already accredited through this scheme and promoting themselves as COVID secure. This free accreditation actively promotes that you are ‘safe to visit’ and was introduced by the ERBID Company working with VisitEngland. For any business that has already not done so I strongly recommend that you do apply for free accreditation now using this link. COVID-19 is not going to go away fast and taking action now will put you in a stronger position for 2021. The market has changed and those businesses that have adapted and have faired the best through this continuing crisis. The ERBID Company are promoting the ‘We’re Good to Go’ much more heavily now on the official English Riviera website to put us in the strongest position moving forwards.

For a guide to using the Good To Go Industry Standard, please click here.

Lobbying on your behalf

The ERBID Company invited to meet with Tourism Minister to discuss impacts of COVID.

The ERBID has been lobbying the government on your behalf. Please see below a selection of the work we have been doing:

The Great South West Tourism Partnership (including the English Riviera BID Company) current key asks to Government are:

Allow October half term holidays to take place, do not instigate a ‘national circuit breaker’ at this time.
Extend the Job Support Scheme to also cover businesses that are not able to open due to Government Guidelines, not just those closed due to legal restrictions and also to those businesses whose customers are unable to travel due to local/ international lockdowns.
Support to be offered to businesses who have suffered direct cancellations as a result of last-minute lockdown restrictions
Review the Rule of Six in England to exclude children.
Review the 10pm closure for hospitality venues in Tier 1 areas.
Maintain the 5% VAT reduction rate and business rates relief to Sept 2021.
The Government reviews the structure and funding of all DMO’s nationally for the long term and in conjunction with Tourism Sector Deal ambitions.

ERBID Recovery Marketing Campaigns

Welcome Back Campaign

On 23rd June 2020, following the Prime Minister’s confirmation of the 4th July re-opening date, the ERBID launched the Welcome Back campaign targeting both Day and Stay visitors. The campaign was purely digital and used Google Search, Google Display, Facebook and Instagram advertising. The campaign received 9.6 million impressions and resulted in almost 100,000 clicks to the English Riviera website. You can read the end of campaign report here.

Golden Ticket Competition

On 30th July 2020, the ERBID launched a new attraction-specific campaign, in the form of a competition. The ‘Golden Ticket Competition’ gave one winner 14 one-time-entry family tickets to English Riviera attractions and activities. The campaign consisted of digital adverts and a radio advert on The Breeze. The campaign received 3.7 million impressions with 3,768 entries to the competition. You can read the end of campaign report here.

Enjoy Summer Safely (with Visit South West)

The South West was awarded £300,000 to promote domestic tourism during August 2020. Working with other regional DMO’s, Visit South West was launched. The Welcome Back, Enjoy Summer Safely campaign was seen on TV, Radio, Out of Home, Local Press and Digital. You can see the full schedule here.

Autumn Adventures Await

The Autumn Adventures Await campaign went live on 1st September and will run until 31st October. This is a digital campaign with adverts on Facebook, Instagram, Google Display and Google Search. At the time of writing (22nd October), this campaign has received 3.5 million impressions.

If you have any concerns, please contact carolyn@englishrivierabid.co.uk