By Andrew Brown
The visitor economy in the Liverpool City Region is showing “encouraging signs of recovery” as our area moves out of Covid restrictions.
Plans are being made to encourage more visitors to come to Southport, Liverpool and other destinations locally through a new two-year Visitor Economy Recovery Strategy which is due to be revealed soon.
The Strategy will be particularly important for Southport, where an estimated 6,500 jobs are directly dependent on tourism. Over 9.1million visitors enjoyed trips to our resort in 2019.
Southport already has big plans in place to build back its local economy thanks to £38.5million in Southport Town Deal funding announced by the Government earlier this year.
The funding has already supported the Southport BID scheme to create “a boulevard of lights” along historic Lord Street and Sefton Council’s transformation of Southport Market into an exciting new food, drink and events venue which opens in July.
Town Deal also aims to create: a new Marine Lake Events Centre; the UK’s first light water and sound show; an Enterprise Arcade to provide new business incubator space; and high quality public spaces through Les Transformations de Southport.
The Covid pandemic hit the leisure and tourism sectors locally particularly hard with an estimated 31,000 lost in the Liverpool City Region tourism sector with the pandemic lockdowns costing the region billions of pounds in visitor spending.
Laura Pye, Chair of the Visitor Economy Board for the city region, said: “The visitor economy has been one of the hardest hit sectors by Covid-19, and until last year had seen an encouraging climb in economic growth. Despite this, the sector remains of the highest importance to the Liverpool City Region.
“The focus is now firmly on recovery, which is already showing encouraging signs as we move out of restrictions.
“The new Visitor Economy Recovery Strategy for the region, soon to be published, will be instrumental in this and with emphasis on investment.
“There are already a number of initiatives underway to help, ranging from marketing to business support and skills.”
As part of the city region’s recovery efforts, Growth Platform is working closely with the Visitor Economy Network and its partners to develop a new two-year recovery strategy.
The region’s tourism industry has been growing steadily in recent years, with spending in the city region reaching £4.98bn in 2019. However, the income generated from the sector has fallen 58% due to Covid restrictions imposed.
The various local and national lockdowns linked to the coronavirus pandemic saw nationally inbound visits down 73% and many companies in the sector struggling to survive.
Findings, contained in the latest independent research commissioned by the Visitor Economy Team at Growth Platform – the Liverpool City Region Growth Company, also saw inbound visitor spend fall by 79% last year, with average hotel occupancy down by 51%.
Throughout the pandemic Growth Platform has worked alongside city region business support organisations and local authority partners to collectively support thousands of businesses to access government schemes, including small business grants, specifically for hospitality and leisure as well as providing advice and guidance to help keep them in business and build their resilience during this pandemic.
Local grant schemes such as the Hospitality and Leisure and Expanded Hospitality grants, amongst others, sat alongside ground-breaking initiatives such as Liverpool Without Walls which has been hailed as a lifeline for the hospitality industry during the pandemic, enabling venues to continue to trade outside during the pandemic.
As part of the city region’s recovery efforts, Growth Platform is working closely with the Visitor Economy Network and its partners to develop a new two-year recovery strategy.
Linked closely to Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) national tourism recovery strategy launched earlier this month – the plan is focussed on the importance of the sector to the city region and the priorities for supporting businesses and protecting jobs.
The recovery plan for the city region visitor economy will cover a range of initiatives including skills training, business support and destination marketing.
These figures are published by the STEAM (Scarborough Tourism Economic Activity Monitor) model, which is used throughout the UK tourism industry to measure economic impact of the visitor economy. Hotel Occupancy data is provided by STR LTD. For a full version of the report please click here.
Other figures showed that the region attracted 26.14m visitors – down from 66.27m (-61%). Day visitors were 23.88m – down from 60.86m (- 61%) and staying visitors were 2.25m down from 5.4m (-58%).
Hotel occupancy for the city region was 38%, down from 78% in 2019 (-51%). Nationally, however, occupancy was 26%, down from 68% (-62%).
Find out more details about Southport BID at southportbid.com and follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In on @southportBID For more details and to buy the new Southport Gift Card please visit www.southportgiftcard.co.uk
