Want the power of 500 businesses for the price of one? Meet the humble BID.
A Business Improvement District is a simple idea. Businesses within an agreed area decide what would make that place better, develop a plan, vote on it and, if successful, pool their contributions to deliver it over five years. Having spent four years leading Visit Inverness Loch Ness, the UK’s first Tourism BID, I saw what becomes possible when businesses work together.
Around 500 businesses have been canvassed as part of the early work exploring an Edinburgh Old Town BID. Of the 120 that responded, representing 25.6% of those approached, 50% were supportive, 8% neutral and 42% unsupportive. At this stage, I think that is a reasonable starting point. There is already a meaningful level of support before businesses have fully shaped and seen a final proposition. Those who are unsure, or currently unconvinced, are just as important to the process. Their questions should help define the boundary, levy, governance and, most importantly, the content of the business plan. With the right consultation and decisions, I could easily see that gap growing.
The question for businesses is relatively straightforward: what would you do with £5,000, £10,000, £50,000 or £100,000 to improve the area surrounding your business? Now imagine having influence over a much larger collective fund while paying only your share. That is the power of a BID.
A seat at the table The Old Town has no shortage of important businesses, attractions, cultural organisations and passionate individuals. Who is the one voice looking out for your and your neighbours interests? A BID can give businesses a seat at the table and a voice in rooms where no individual operator might otherwise be represented.
During the pandemic, one of our smaller levy payers at Visit Inverness Loch Ness was able to speak directly with a senior politician about what was happening to their business. It was a simple moment, but an important one. The BID created access that the business would have struggled to secure on its own.
We were also able to gather evidence, represent hundreds of businesses and help secure additional funding to support the recovery of the destination. There was strength in being able to say that we were speaking on behalf of a broad business community rather than offering the view of one organisation. That collective voice matters all the time, not only during a crisis. Decisions affecting the Old Town will continue to be made around transport, public space, safety, events, visitor management and future investment. Businesses should have a meaningful role in those discussions. A BID provides the structure, resource and mandate to maintain that presence. Someone can be in the room, understand what matters to businesses and make sure their interests are heard. For smaller businesses, that can be particularly valuable. Large organisations may already have dedicated teams, established relationships and the time to engage. Many independent operators are running their business day to day. A BID gives them access to influence and representation without requiring them to attend every meeting themselves.
Marketing with real scale Marketing was a major part of the work at Visit Inverness Loch Ness. Through our digital channels, we marketed the destination to more than 30 million people a year. Social media became a significant platform, while our website helped visitors plan their stay and discover businesses across a destination covering more than 1,200 square miles.
We developed interactive maps, live cameras that allowed people around the world to engage with the destination and discover it's businesses while looking for Nessie as well as campaigns that brought the destination to life. I remain particularly proud of this film promoting Inverness and Loch Ness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reXa7-stcfY&themeRefresh=1 .
Few individual businesses could create or sustain that level of activity. Through the BID, they all had access to it.
Following the pandemic, our immediate priority was volume recovery. Alongside that was an opportunity to reshape the destination: encouraging year-round visits, spreading people across the wider area and giving them more reasons to stay for longer. That is relevant to Edinburgh’s Old Town. Edinburgh already attracts substantial visitor numbers. The opportunity is to help more businesses benefit from them.
Good collective marketing can encourage visitors to explore beyond the places they already know, discover different streets, extend their stay and support a wider mix of attractions, shops, hospitality businesses and experiences. It can promote the area throughout the year and help businesses respond to quieter periods as well as busy ones. It also creates opportunities for campaigns that carry more weight than anything a single business could commission.
Improving the experience around every business My current work with visitor attractions across Scotland regularly reinforces the importance of the wider visitor experience. An attraction can provide an exceptional welcome inside its doors, but its visitors experience begins when they leave their accommodation or home, throughout the journey and the street to your front door. They notice whether an area feels clean and safe. They look for information and signs. They remember the atmosphere and how easy it was to find their way around.The same applies to every Old Town business. There is a wide range of activity a BID could support, from enhanced cleaning and visitor information to work around antisocial behaviour, business communication, safety, wayfinding and animation of public spaces. The eventual priorities need to come from businesses. There will be limited resources, so choices will be required. The plan should focus on the activity that will make the greatest shared difference across the area.
The relationship with Council services also needs to be clear. In some places, BIDs fund genuinely new or supplementary activity. In others, they are contracted to deliver council services to be delivered directly for a variety of reasons, including giving businesses greater voice and control over priorities, standards and performance. The important point is transparency. Businesses should understand what is already being provided, what the BID would add and what outcomes their contribution is intended to achieve.The practical question is whether businesses want something to be delivered. Where there is a gap, the BID can often be the answer. Without collective action, the alternative may simply be accepting that the issue remains unresolved.
The value of collective investment The lowest levy at Visit Inverness Loch Ness began at around £160 a year and is now approximately £220. In return, businesses accessed an organisation representing around 500 operators, delivering destination marketing, representation, projects and additional investment.A useful way of thinking about the scale is this: an individual business was contributing its own small share towards the buying power of the whole. At the beginning, the additional income and funding we generated made that collective value equivalent to something closer to 750 times an individual share. By the latter part of my time leading the organisation, that had grown to nearer 1,750 times.Contributions were, of course, based on the levy methodology rather than being evenly divided. Larger businesses frequently provided a substantial proportion of the overall funding. This meant smaller businesses could gain access to activity worth significantly more than their own contribution. That is one of the model’s greatest opportunities.A small independent operator paying a few hundred pounds can have a voice alongside major organisations and benefit from a programme funded by a much larger collective pot. Smaller businesses may stand to gain the most, provided they engage, make their priorities clear and help ensure the plan works for them.At Visit Inverness Loch Ness, we doubled the return delivered from levy income through growth, partnership working and external funding. The organisation also became the UK’s first carbon-neutral BID and won the Earth Award at ITB Berlin, the world’s largest tourism trade show, for its work on sustainability and climate action. Those achievements started with businesses pooling their resources around a shared plan. The organisation is now in its third five-year business-plan cycle. Businesses have repeatedly voted for it to continue. The same is true of many long-established BIDs across Scotland.
Getting the foundations right The BID model can work extremely well. Success depends on putting the pieces of the jigsaw together properly.The area needs to make sense. Businesses need to understand who will pay, how contributions will be calculated and whether the rate is fair and proportionate. The levy must be sufficient to fund activity capable of making a meaningful difference while remaining affordable. The business plan is key. It should clearly reflect what levy payers have asked for, explain what will be delivered and show how success will be measured.Governance matters too. A representative business board should oversee delivery, supported by effective monitoring, open reporting and clear evidence of impact.There is a level of shared commitment within a BID. Not every business will feel equally enthusiastic about every project. They will still benefit from a stronger area, greater visibility, collective representation and services they could not fund alone.
That collective commitment is part of why the model works. For attractions and other visitor-facing businesses, it's far more than just another cost, a BID is an investment in a better tomorrow. By everyone paying their fair share, there is an opportunity to improve the place, strengthen the business environment and create better experiences for visitors and residents.I may have called it the humble BID, but make no mistake, the power of a well-constructed BID can provide tremendous benefit. Make your voice heard. Listen to those who have experienced the model. Think about what you would do with £5,000, £10,000, £50,000 or £100,000 to improve the area around your business. I'm not saying every BID is perfect, and no collective plan will work for everyone. However, make no mistake, paying a fraction of the total along with 500 other businesses to deliver the change you want to see it a huge opportunity. BID's are humble but powerful, so get the foundations and the plan right, and you will discover why after that initial yes vote the vast majority of BID's get voted Yes time after time.
- Michael Golding, CEO of ASVA and former CEO of Visit Inverness Loch Ness BID
