Liverpool is witnessing a surge in hotel bookings, with the city recording its busiest month ever this summer. The latest figures reveal that July was the most successful month for city centre hotel stays.
City council leaders are optimistic that Liverpool has successfully navigated the challenges of the pandemic and its impact on the tourism sector, with the city potentially heading towards its best year ever for hotel stays. In total, 195,780 city centre hotel rooms were sold across July in Liverpool.
This surpasses the previous record set in August 2018, which saw 192,070 rooms sold. City leaders are particularly encouraged by these recent statistics, considering the effect lockdowns have had on other cities.
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In addition to achieving the best individual month on record, Liverpool also recorded its best May to July period ever.
During this period, a total of 562,922 rooms were sold - which included Liverpool's best ever May, reports .
Regarding overall occupancy levels, data for the year shows weekend occupancy standing at 82% for the year to date, while July reached 86.2%. This is particularly noteworthy given the significant increase in the number of rooms over recent years.
With 1.255m rooms already sold since the beginning of the year, there is hope that Liverpool could be on track for its best ever year for city centre hotel stays, surpassing 2018.
Cllr Nick Small, Liverpool Council's cabinet member for growth and economy, expressed his delight at the visitor numbers and their significance for the city.
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He told the Liverpool 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 continued: "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 noted that the city's thriving film industry is also contributing to increased hotel reservations, with the production of Batman spin-off Clayface currently underway in Liverpool.
He said: "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."