Details of the effort to revitalise Brighton and Hove’s tourism industry are due to go before councillors this week.
The industry, worth £1 billion to the city economy in 2019, collapsed during the coronavirus lockdowns, with just nine million visitors coming to the city in 2020, spending £370 million.
A report to the council’s Tourism, Equalities, Communities and Culture said that Visit Brighton had worked with national press and media outlets to generate travel coverage with an estimated value of £1.8 million if it was paid advertising.
From April 2021 to March 2022, the visitbrighton.com website had 2.5 million page views from more than a million users.
The organisation’s social media channels had more than 120,000 followers and its content received more than 44 million impressions.
Visit Brighton has reduced from 550 partner businesses in 2018-19 to 355 in 2021-22 because of financial pressure and business failure.
The report said: “Covid-19 dealt a devasting blow to many tourism and hospitality businesses in Brighton and Hove, causing what may be long-term damage to investment and employment.
“Businesses, operators, employees and freelancers saw their livelihoods catastrophically impacted as they were forced to close during the pandemic.”
The annual figures for 2021 will be available in December with the hope of increasing visitor numbers.
The report added: “Predictions for the continued recovery of the visitor economy in 2022-23 are uncertain.
“Covid concerns are still impacting travel plans and, as overseas travel increases, the ‘staycation’ boom, from which Brighton has benefited in 2021-22, may become less buoyant.
“The cost-of-living crisis will impact on the decision to take day trips and short breaks while business are seeing their profitability squeezed due to the increase in food and fuel prices. Businesses face an uncertain 2022-23.”
Visit Brighton has worked with the Brighton and Hove Destination Experience Group to deliver the tourism recovery plan to rebuild consumer confidence.
Visit Britain does not predict a return to 2019 levels of tourism or spending until 2025.
The Convention Bureau, which promotes the city as a conference destination, would normally confirm 60 conferences in the city which usually take place midweek from September to June, bringing business outside the typical holiday and weekend getaway period.
The organisation promoted the city at five leading event trade shows and, in the last year, hosted conferences from the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Unison, the British Medical Association and Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Visit Brighton has an annual budget of £744,000 and generates an income of £390,000 from partnership fees, commissions and advertising.
The Tourism, Equalities, Communities and Culture Committee is due to meet at Brighton Town Hall at 4pm on Thursday (15 September). The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
Its not surprising. The green and Labour run tourism committee do everything they can to persuade tourists to take foreign holidays. As a response to covid they have rasied parking costs, the council do nothing about rough sleepers and drug addicts hassling tourists in public areas which shocks people that come from other normally run cities as you just don’t see this anywhere outside India. They even do press releases saying how much they hate AirBnB and tourists to national newspapers. They are preparing a new go to Spain press release about this on AirBnBs this week on the tourism committee. They simply do not care how many jobs are supported by tourism in the city as are the restaurants and shops many of us who live here also enjoy and don’t want to lose. Even conference delegates are saying they want to go on conferences elsewhere as parking is too expensive and there is a shortage of tourism accommodation in the City. The best thing for tourism would be if this committee just disbanded.
I am afraid that the place does look rather “down at heel” (potholes, lack of paint, weeds, overflowing bins, rats running around all over the seafront all day and night) aside from a couple of newer developments. Add into that the anti-car policies, transport strikes and yes – feeling unsafe due to the high level of street sleepers and beggars. I have many friends from London and further afield who would rather not come here day or night. Also it is expensive here so again people who spend more want nicer environs.