Liverpool City Region launches £1.5 million fund

The Liverpool City Combined Authority has launched a new £1.5 million fund to lure UK tourists back to the area.

Normally worth £4.9 billion a year and supporting 59,000 jobs, the sector brought in just £2.1 billion in 2020. Visit Britain forecasts that visitor spend nationwide in 2021 will be only 23 per cent of 2019 levels and visitor numbers only 29 per cent.

The package will target staycationers from London, the South East, the Midlands, Scotland and Northern Ireland with marketing and advertising. It will also support the drive to increase international visitors when restrictions are fully lifted.

The fund will enable Growth Platform to create a £3.2 million three-year programme to rebuild the visitor economy, with the majority of the money set to come from the private sector.

The main priorities of the Destination Marketing project are to: bring tourists back to the city region, rebuilding confidence amongst existing markets when they are ready to come back and ensuring that the city region remains competitive; develop new visitor markets that have emerged as a result of the pandemic; attract markets that can come mid-week to increase demand out of core season; help all businesses in the hospitality, retail, attraction and cultural sectors to resume successful trading; establish a new sustainable funding model to support future marketing campaigns beyond the next two years; and support the emerging destinations which have been (or are in the process of being) transformed through the regeneration schemes around the city region.

Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram said: “In recent years our city region has become an international destination of choice, attracting visitors from all over the world to soak up our culture, music, sport, hospitality and much, much more.

“Over the last year and a half we’ve helped more than 4,500 local businesses with over £45 million worth of funding to keep them afloat during the pandemic. With restrictions on international travel likely to continue this year, we want as many people as possible to choose our region for a staycation this year. As things get back to normal, people will be able to enjoy all of the things that make the Liverpool City Region so vibrant – with fewer international tourists, you might even beat the queues!”