Gloucester City Council leaders do not rule out relocating the tourist information to a more central location.
Labour group leader Terry Pullen put forward a motion on Thursday to explore relocating the centre to a venue in the new King’s Quarter development to make it easy to find and fully accessible to visitors.
He said relocating it to this area would bring it closer to the bus and railway stations.
“Tourism is a vitally important aspect of Gloucester’s economy,” Councillor Pullen told the council meeting.
“Visitors to the city contribute widely to many sectors of the economy including hospitality, accommodation, retail, museums and many other historic attractions.
“When visiting Gloucester, it is important that visitors can quickly and easily familiarise themselves with everything the city has to offer and the tourist information centre is crucial in ensuring this happens.
“Currently the tourist information centre is located in the Museum of Gloucester and whilst the service it provides is good it is not always easily found by people visiting the city for the first time.”
Culture and leisure cabinet member Steve Morgan thanked Councillor Pullen for his motion which highlighted the tourism centre and the excellent service it provides.
He said the problem with locating the tourism information centre is establishing where the city centre is.
“The problem is some people would think the city centre is The Cross and others would say its towards the docks because there is a lot of activity over there.
“Sadly, there is no ideal optimum place to put a tourist information centre.”
He said the Conservative administration was happy to accept the motion as it is trying to help boost tourism in the city.
However, exploring options and considering relocating are done as a matter of course when they are reviewing the service.
“When we get back up and running in full operation officers will see the flow and where the activity is taking place,” he said.
“We are not ruling out for ever and a day the fact the tourism information centre might relocate to another location but at this moment in time there is no good reason for us to do that.
“There is no business case to change what we already have.”
