Cornwall Council has agreed to give  £300,000 to a new private Visit Cornwall 'company after previously scrapping funding blaming government cuts.

Members of Cornwall Council’s Cabinet have given the go ahead for the creation of a Visit Cornwall Community Interest Company, "led by the private sector", to market Cornwall as a tourist destination.

Following the council’s decision to withdraw the funding for Visit Cornwall as part of its proposals to save £196m over the next four years, discussions have been taking place with the private sector to ensure that the activities of the organisation could continue after March 31.

“We recognise the vital role of the visitor economy in Cornwall but the need to make £196m savings means we have had to look at different ways of delivering a number of the services we provide“ said Julian German, the council’s cabinet member for culture and economy.

“The private sector have been extremely positive and proactive in coming forward with a new model of delivery. I would like to thank members of the Visit Cornwall Partnership for working so hard with the council over a short period of time to develop a new model of delivery which sees the private sector taking the lead on marketing Cornwall as a tourism destination in the future.”

Under the new model the Visit Cornwall CIC will take over the tourism promotion and industry support activities of Visit Cornwall from April 1. This will include "building on the existing reputation of Visit Cornwall by raising awareness of Cornwall as a tourist destination to new markets and generating additional tourism visits and spend". It will also focus on attracting more visitors outside the main holiday season and increasing average visitor spend.

Visit Cornwall currently represents around 950 promotion partners and one of the key aims of the new company, which will operate as a private sector trade organisation, will be to generate additional income by increasing this number at the same time as seeking sponsorship and advertising income.

“Cornwall has been voted as the Best UK Holiday Region in the British Travel Awards for the last five years and part of the role of Visit Cornwall CIC will be to further raise the profile of Cornwall on the international stage “ said Mr German.

“The company will act as the voice for Cornish tourism and will work with partners, including the Council and the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership, to support more businesses, increase visitor spend and create more jobs in Cornwall”.

Lord St Levan, chair of the Visit Cornwall Partnership, said “The time is right for the tourism industry in Cornwall to have control of its own destiny and in particular to take on the responsibility to develop further Visit Cornwall’s hugely successful destination marketing. This is an exciting development for Cornwall tourism and we in the private sector relish the challenge of building on Visit Cornwall’s successes and playing our part towards a prosperous future for Cornwall."

Malcolm Bell, head of Visit Cornwall for Cornwall Development Company, added: “Following this positive confirmation from Cornwall Council I will now work with the private sector over the next few weeks to enable a smooth transition into a CIC. Our focus now is to put the structure and staff in place to ensure that from April 1 we continue to deliver award-winning destination marketing for Cornwall and our industry partners.”

The Council is providing one off funding of up to £300,000 to support the transition to the new company with the new Board, comprising members of the private sector and partners, expected to be in place by April.