Yahoo News Hotels ready to show visitors 'the real side of Liverpool'
Hotels close to Anfield have been booked up for months ahead of Taylor Swift’s arrival - but their success is not dependent on the musician’s pulling power.
The Phoenix Hotel in Kirkdale gained international recognition earlier this month as a mural of Taylor sprung up on its outside wall. But while the artwork is a recent creation, the plans for the singer’s arrival have been months in the making.
By July last year, the hotel on Foley Street North was already fully booked up for all three of Taylor’s gigs at Anfield, a five minute drive from the hotel. Hotel manager Marie Carter said: “With Taylor Swift, all the businesses will feel that impact because it's such a big event.
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“All the businesses will do really well. We've seen the sales increase and I imagine everyone else will see that. It's quite flattering that they’re choosing us over the big hotels in town.”
Daragh McGrath, 24, from the city centre, is the manager of The Flat Iron pub and hotel, a stone’s throw from the stadium. Rooms for when Taylor is playing have also been booked up for months in advance at the Walton Breck Road venue. He is looking forward to Swifties experiencing a different side of the city.
He said: “I think Liverpool FC has the licence for seven or eight concerts each summer. With Taylor playing three nights, P!NK playing two, it’s obviously a big boost to the area.
“We don't really know what to expect. We think it's going to be completely different to the match and attract a different crowd. The crowd will be a lot younger.
“If you're coming to Liverpool, people might not see outside the city centre unless you’re a football fan. You can see the real side, the community aspect. You do get that in the city centre of course, Scousers are Scousers and they’ll always help you.
“But I feel that myself, being from Ireland, you feel it a lot more in close communities like this.”
Daragh believes it’s not just hotels which will see this benefit. He said: “Obviously some people might see it as a disruption but you need to see the positive side.
"It's good for cafes, good for shops, good for taxi drivers. It's good for all these people. People are even renting out their driveways.”
However, both managers believe the success of their hotels stand out even when you take away the Taylor effect. Marie, who is from Anfield, helped revive the Phoenix, which was disused for more than 20 years before reopening in 2020.
Marie describes the hotel as a boutique, affordable luxury establishment. She said: “With the owners, we put a plan together and created it all together with our own ideas, from my own experience of working in hotels and their experience of developing hotels.
“We put together what we’d want in a hotel, what we were kind of missing in other hotels. It's not just the guest aspects, it's creating a culture where everyone’s kind.”
In some ways, the Phoenix has to be inventive and realistic with what it can offer to guests. She said: “We don't have a kitchen. We had to order in the food and be a bit more creative.
"We do things like Ubers into the city centre. If you come and stay with us, you’ll get your transport into the city centre included, so we always offer something a little bit more.
"Competition with people in town was hard to begin with, but the Phoenix has its own little custom and pull now."
While Taylor will undoubtedly provide a boost to the area, the hotels attract visitors all year round. Daragh said: “The building sells itself. It's ancient - it's been a pub since the 1800s. It's been recently renovated for a much more modern specification, but still keeping intact a lot of its original features.”
Marie argues the Phoenix’s success means it doesn’t struggle through the summer months anyway. She said: “The bar gets quite a lot of traffic for the football season. However the hotel has over the years built its core customers for business and leisure.
“We don't see much of an impact (when the football's not on) because we're always quite full. We operate on a high occupancy.
“We’ve had people stay with us because they’ve seen us online, they've seen us on Instagram and that is something we’ve always wanted to create. I go online sometimes and because I see a hotel, I then want to stay in that city. It's really nice that we can do that for someone else.”
