Liverpool City Region’s Visitor Economy now supports over 50,000 jobs and generates income in excess of £4bn, according to new 2015 figures published.
The destination also attracts over 56.5m day visitors annually, and the number of staying visitors has risen to almost 5m.
Findings are contained in the latest independent research commissioned by the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).
Headline city region-wide figures show:
- 7% increase in economic impact from £3.8bn in 2014 to £4.094bn in 2015
- 5% increase in total visitor days from 66.73m in 2014 to 69.99m in 2015
- 5% increase in total visitor numbers from 58.72m in 2014 to 61.49m in 2015
- 5% increase in day visitors from 53.89m in 2014 to 56.54m in 2015
- 4% increase in total employment from 49,006 in 2014 to 50,994 in 2015
And for Liverpool alone:
- 8% increase in economic impact from £2.53bn in 2014 to £2.72bn in 2015
- 9% in staying visitor days from 5.95m in 2014 to 6.46m in 2015
- 5% increase in total visitor days from 36.3m in 2014 to 38.2m in 2015
- 5% increase in total employment from 31,884 in 2014 to 33,348
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.
The figures also exceed the expectations made within the Destination Management Plan – which guides the visitor economy sector. For example, a target of £3.8bn was set for the total visitor spend, but this has been exceeded by £0.26bn. The number of staying nights for the city region and Liverpool has also increased at a slightly higher rate than expected, including the nights spent in serviced accommodation.
The International Passenger Survey 2015 was also recently released by Visit Britain. This survey only covers overseas staying visitors for the main tourism destinations across the United Kingdom.
For Liverpool, the key findings of this survey were that Liverpool in 2015 was the 6th most visited city in the UK by overseas visitors, the same position as 2014. The city also performed particularly strongly in the overseas business visitor market with 179,000 visitors coming for business purposes. This is a high increase of 23% since 2014.
Peter Sandman, Head of Visitor Economy for the LEP, said: “These figures are not only encouraging but also show a confidence in the city region. The significant increase in visitor spend reflects the quality we have to offer across the board covering both culture and leisure. The rise in visitor economy employment is particularly positive as well as visitors coming for business – a market with potential for even more growth.”