After what is being universally hailed as the most exciting Gloucester Tall Ships and Adventure show in its history, businesses across the city have been praising the event for the extra visitors and sales it has brought in to the whole city of Gloucester.

One national brand retailer on Westgate Street reported a 96.6% increase in sales for the same period in the previous year achieving a week’s sales in just two days, making it one of the top ten performing stores in the UK chain.

The hospitality sector has also had a bumper weekend with J D Wetherspoons reporting the best days trade since they were established, even beating records during the Rugby World Cup 2015.

Hotels and bars across the city were filled across the city and with the Gloucester Sea Shanty festival taking place at the same time at fifteen venues across the city, the evening economy has also performed incredibly well with footfall figures showing a 38.1% increase in visitors to lower Eastgate Street indicating that festival goers were staying well into the night to keep the festival vibe going. Kieron Bates, of Rene Group and a Director of Gloucester BID was delighted with the weekends events commenting “Events such as these have a huge positive impact us on our business and others in the city and draw in visitors from all over the country and internationally. The more we can do of this type of event the better”

Marketing Gloucester have produced some preliminary figures which indicate the economic impact of the event on the city, with over 200,000 visitors to the city over the three days of the event it is estimated that 2019’s biggest ever event will have given an £11.2 million boost to the local economy –activity that is equivalent to producing 200 full time jobs for a year.

Gloucester has been been hugely successful in developing itself as a destination for tourists and in 2015 the city overtook Cheltenham to become the most popular in terms of the number of day visitors and total spend of visitors and has been with nearly £205 million spent by visitors in 2017, an 62% increase on 2010.

Some highlights from the independent research which has been commissioned by Marketing Gloucester include:

·       3,203,000 day visits by tourist to Gloucester

·       920,000 nights stayed in Gloucester Hotels, B&Bs and so-on

·       An increase in the proportion of employment related to tourism from 5% of jobs to 7% with over 4,100 people now employed in the sector

Above is a heat map showing where UK Visitors travelled from to Tall Ships and adventure Show

Jason Smith, Chief Executive of Marketing Gloucester commented on the successes saying “The Tall Ships and Adventure festival, is just one of the many activities partners in the city are undertaking as part of an holistic multistrand branding exercise for the city of Gloucester – alongside the physical regeneration this is helping to reposition “brand Gloucester” transforming its reputation as an exciting visitor destination.  The knock on impact of consistent, quality events, development of visitor attractions such as the Cathedral, museums, docks and Gloucester Quays is that more wealth and jobs are being created in the city and that demand for overnight accommodation is driving a boom in interest from Hotel operators wanting to invest in the city.”

Paul James, leader of Gloucester City council was also very happy with the results and emphasised that they were part of a ten year visitor economy strategy developed by Marketing Gloucester on behalf of and adopted by the city council available at this link >

https://www.gloucester.gov.uk/media/1371/growing_gloucesters_visitor_economy.pdf

“Gloucester has really shown itself at its best this bank holiday weekend and with this being ten year anniversary since the opening of Gloucester Quays and the first Tall Ships show it is evident to everyone how far the city has come in that time, it will be very exciting to see how the planned regeneration for Kings Quarter will continue the city’s progress”