THE rights behind the region’s most successful tourism campaign is to be sold off as a result of Government cuts.

A decision will be made next week on who should be allowed to buy up the rights to the award-winning Passionate People, Passionate Places as part of a sale of assets once held for the benefit for the region.

Development agency One North East, to be closed this spring, has been forced to sell off all of its intellectual property by the Department for Business.

Staff at the agency were banned from even promoting the region last year when ministers froze tourism spending. The end result was a dip in tourism figures.

The ‘Passionate People, Passionate Places’ tagline has proved phenomenally successful since its launch in 2005, helping to turn tourism into a £4bn industry that sustains 60,000 jobs in the region. The sale of the brand is run alongside a sale of more than 70 website addresses set up to bring visitors to the region.

They include sites such as northeastengland.co.uk, fishingnortheastengland.com, golfnortheastengland.com and visitnortheastengland.org.

Last night tourism bosses at the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative said they were bidding for some of the assets, but could not say which. It is thought the group, set up by the two councils to promote Tyneside, could buy up some of the sites in order to prevent others using it to their disadvantage.

News of the sale came to light as members of the North East local enterprise partnership said they would have liked the chance to have taken over these and other assets.

Gill Southern, director at manufacturing firm Wessington Cryogenics, sits on the partnership set up by the Government to bring a business-led approach to regeneration. Speaking at an event in Durham, she said: “I thought Passionate People, Passionate Places was incredibly successful. And I wanted us as a local enterprise partnership to get hold of this and use it because tourism is a hugely important sector to us here.

“But what I was told the other day is that the sale is already closed, we can’t have it here for our benefit, it will go to the highest bidder without us benefiting.”

Officers at One North East considering the sale will give the price placed for the items precedence, with 85% weighting towards this. The remaining 15% of their decision will be allowed to be based on whether or not the assets will be used to the region’s greater good.

The Journal was told the agency would be unlikely to sell the naming rights to an organisation which cannot show a regional interest, but that does not rule out other tourist groups buying the copyrighted terms just to prevent others using them.

Last night Andrew Sugden, director of membership and policy at the North East Chamber of Commerce said: “An enormous amount of time, work and money went into promoting the North East as a great place to live, work and visit and retaining this intellectual property would be a huge fillip to those of us who want to make sure similar work continues.

“The Passionate campaign and Invest North East websites are of no use to anyone outside the region so I would hope they will be retained and used in some way to continue the important work of promoting North East England.”

An announcement on the sale of the intellectual property will be made next week. Applications will be judged by two officers from One North East.