Council boss says city has ‘weathered the covid storm’ after huge numbers came to stay this summer
Liverpool city centre hotels – including the Hilton and others – have had a booming summer(Image: Liverpool ECHO)
Liverpool is experiencing a hotel boom, with the city experiencing its busiest ever month for room bookings this summer. New figures show that July was the best ever month for city centre hotel stays.
Council bosses believe Liverpool has “weathered the storm” of the pandemic and its impact on the visitor economy, with the city on course for what could be its best ever year for hotel stays. In total, 195,780 city centre hotel rooms were sold across the month of July in Liverpool.
This is an improvement on the previous busiest ever month, which saw 192,070 rooms sold in August 2018. City leaders are particularly buoyed by the recent statistics given the impact the lockdowns have had on other cities.
As well as the best individual month on record, Liverpool has also experienced its best May to July period of all time.
In total, 562,922 rooms were sold in that period – which included Liverpool’s best ever May.
In terms of overall occupancy levels, data for the year shows weekend occupancy for the year to date standing at 82%, while July was at 86.2%. This is particularly impressive considering the number of rooms has greatly increased over recent years.
And there is hope that with 1.255m rooms sold since the start of the year already, Liverpool could be on for its best ever year for city centre hotel stays, beating 2018.
Cllr Nick Small is Liverpool Council’s cabinet member for growth and economy and says he is delighted with the numbers of people coming to stay in the city and what it shows.
The Municipal Hotel Liverpool.(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
He told the ECHO: “This is great news for the city.
“It shows that Liverpool has bounced back from the pandemic and now our visitor economy is doing better than ever. We are doing really well.”
Cllr Small added: “Some of this is down to tourism and the great events we have seen over the summer in the city, some of it is down to shopping and people coming into the city for the night-time economy.”
“But our numbers are also up in mid-week and a lot of that is down to the business tourism we see in the city including conferences and other events at the arena and convention centre.”
Cllr Small said the city’s equally booming filming industry is also helping to bolster the number of hotel bookings, with the shooting of Batman spin-off Clayface taking place in the city.
The city councillor added: “So it is really good how we have come back from lockdown, because lots of other places haven’t managed to do that and it clearly had a big impact on the visitor economy.
“Liverpool has weathered that storm and things are looking very bright.”