Tourism figures on the rise in Liverpool City Region

Latest figures for the city region show the visitor economy is now worth over £5bn surpassing the pre-pandemic high of £4.98bn in 2019.

The findings, contained in the latest independent research for 2022 commissioned by the Visitor Economy team at Growth Platform Liverpool City Region Growth Company, also show that although the pandemic continues to effect tourism there was a “strong recovery” happening across the city region.

Welcoming the latest figures Janet Nuzum, Visitor Economy Sector Manager at Growth Platform said: "We are absolutely delighted to witness the resurgence of tourism in Liverpool City Region.  And 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 5% for years to come - boosting the economy by £250m by 2026.

“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.”

Figures also show that although visitor numbers are still below the pre-pandemic figures of 66.27m in 2019 they have picked up to 55.94m while 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.

The figures also showed that bobs 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. While other figures show hotel occupancy is also steadily rising to 74.3% from the 55.2% in 2021 and in 2019 was 78.4%.