Liverpool city centre’s hotel sector has smashed the million bed barrier in record breaking time.
The landmark figure was passed on Sunday, 1st July with the month itself the most successful ever with a record 189,252 rooms sold.
By the end of July almost 1,189,000 rooms had been sold since 1 January – almost as many as were sold in the whole of 2012 (1,123,055).
The data comes in the latest monthly report which shows the city centre is well on course to pass the 2 million milestone for a second successive year.
And most encouragingly, occupancy rates across the 66 city centre hotels/apart hotels and guest houses, is at an all-time weekly high of 80.2%, with weekend occupancy at an average of 88.8% across 6,592 rooms.
The April-June portion of the year was another record breaker with 539,000 beds sold – a 5% rise on the second quarter in 2017 – and just 2,000 rooms off the most successful reported quarter in July-Sep 2017, which encompasses the traditionally busy, school summer holiday season.
Liverpool’s tourism boom has received a considerable boost in 2018 with a series of high profile events to celebrate the 10th anniversary as European Capital of Culture, such as the Terracotta Warriors at World Museum Liverpool, with arguably the most popular still to come at the start of October with the arrival of The Giants – a three-day extravaganza of street theatre.
The city’s attractiveness to the conference and business sector has also grown massively since the creation of ACC Liverpool in 2008, with the waterfront complex set to host the Labour Party annual conference at the end of the month.
In 2008 Liverpool city centre had just 37 hotels (providing 3,726 rooms) but has seen more than £340m invested in the sector in the past decade with a further two new hotels (Premier Inn at Lime Street and Epic on Seel Street) set to complete before the of this year.
The city council continues to invest in tourism and is currently planning for a new cruise terminal so it can welcome the world’s biggest passenger vessels and further develop a regional visitor economy worth over £4.5bn, supporting over 53,500 jobs.
The boom has also been noted at John Lennon Airport which has recorded its busiest first six months to a year since 2011 with Liverpool now the fifth most visited destination in the UK for overseas visitors.
Deputy Mayor of Liverpool, Councillor Wendy Simon, Cabinet Member for Culture and Tourism, said: “Liverpool has worked very hard over the past decade to build on the platform of being European Capital of Culture and to promote one of Britain’s most dynamic and vibrant city centres, not just nationally but internationally.
“2018 has been an exceptionally strong year with a great mix of massive family friendly events be it The Tall Ships, Liverpool Biennial and The Giants still to come and when you weave in our regular diet of premiership football, world class shopping and major concerts and conferences you can see why the city is so popular across a huge demographic.
“Our hotel sector do a sterling job to cater for this demand and the quality and standard of service not only underlines the fact the city is one of the friendliest and most welcoming, they add to the overall offer and fuel the desire to visit again and again which is a huge factor in these amazing figures.”