Whilst I applaud Birmingham Thistle hotel manager, Peter Farrow's, passion for our great city, I must disagree with his plea, published online this week, for Birmingham to once again bid for the City of Culture status.
The reason being that Birmingham will never win it.
When you look at past winners, Glasgow, Liverpool and Londonderry, it's quite clear that one of the main drivers of the City of Culture is to deliver economic growth to historically greatly depressed economies.
In a way, we should be grateful that Birmingham didn't win it. Who wants to be a winner in a race of economic losers?
What would be even better is that we didn't waste a single more minute or penny on such titles (conservative estimates of the costs for the bid currently total £200k).
We need to start appreciating that we are, in fact, ALREADY a city of culture.
We say that we are a 'cultural capital' and a 'global city with a local heart', but do we really believe it if we're having to enter beauty competitions to be nominated as such?
We don't hear London or Manchester resting their marketing mettle on such awards, so why should we? Switched on cities such as these realise what to bid for and what not to bid for.
The city is littered with the ghosts of competitions past: the European Capital of Culture, the recent UK City of Culture, the Millennium Exhibition and the National Stadium are just a few examples. I'm not saying that we shouldn't enter competitions. Let's just enter ones appropriate to our status that we have a strong likelihood of winning.
I end by offering my thoughts to the city's hoteliers and leisure marketeers, that the best way to attract visitors to our 'urban shores' is to provide an unbeatable experience whilst here. And to effectively market what we offer.
Let's focus on that and not on competitions that we will not and should not win.
By Sarah Hughes on 08.09.2010 Back