Liverpool City Region tourism spend surpasses pre-pandemic levels

Tourism spending levels for Liverpool are now worth £5bn a year, beating the pre-pandemic high for the city region of £4.98bn in 2019.

And next year’s data will be boosted by a host of successful events staged by the region, including the hugely successful Eurovision Song Contest, on behalf of Ukraine.

Other visitor economy figures show that, although the pandemic continues to affect tourism, there is a strong recovery under way.

These findings are contained in the latest independent research for 2022 commissioned by the Visitor Economy team at Growth Platform – Liverpool City Region Growth Company.

Headline figures show:

• Although visitor numbers are still below the pre-pandemic figures of 66.27m in 2019, they have picked up to 55.94m. Visitor numbers dropped to 26.14m in 2020 and 42.15m in 2021
• The number of staying visitors has risen to 5.83m overtaking the 2019 figure of 5.40m and is higher than the 2018 figure of 5.48m
• The number of day visitors continues to rise to 50.11m catching up with 2019 figures of 60.86m. 2021 saw 38.12m
• Jobs in the sector have picked up to 51,605. The figure from 2019 was 55,703. They had dropped to just over 24,000 in 2020 to 38,000 in 2021
• Other figures show hotel occupancy is also steadily rising, to 74.3% from the 55.2% in 2021. The figure in 2019 was 78.4%

Welcoming the latest figures Janet Nuzum, Visitor Economy Sector Manager at Growth Platform, said: “These figures can only go on an upward trajectory with the success of hosting this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, The Open Championship, the Grand National Festival and other world-famous events.

“The Eurovision alone is forecast to increase the number of visitors to the city region by around five per cent for years to come – boosting the economy by £250m by 2026.”

Janet added: “There is, of course, still work to be done, but the support and resilience of our local community, businesses and tourism partners have not only been integral to this fantastic recovery but are key to the continued growth of our visitor economy.”

Janet Nuzum

As part of the continuing recovery efforts, Growth Platform has worked closely with the visitor economy sector to deliver a series of sector-boosting initiatives including growing the number of business events in the region and a three-year Destination Marketing Project, via the Strategic Investment Fund.

“The projects have helped to kick-start the sector following the pandemic and continue to provide the basis for future ambitions for the region.

The business events project has resulted in attracting and delivering 31 conferences since 2021 and has created £13.9m economic impact to the region. The destination marketing project is focused on delivering a coherent programmme of regional marketing activity, targeting domestic and overseas growth markets and dispersing those visitors and their spend across the region.

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 Global.