Plymouth's money-spinning plan to attract six million visitors
Plymouth is on a mission to attract 6.2m visitors a year by 2030 - bringing £450m into the city’s coffers. The city is considered a tourism success story and has a plan to become the South West’s leading destination and one of the UK’s top 10 city breaks.
The ambition is included in the Plymouth City Centre Company’s draft business plan, which will be presented to businesses on Friday, September 13. The document reveals that in 2008 just 4m visitors came to Plymouth, spending £273m, but by pre-Covid 2019 this had grown to 5.2m, with £334m being spent in the city.
In 2019, Plymouth was named the second-best holiday destination in the world in Condé Nast Traveller magazine’s best holiday destinations “positioning the city as an international cultural location”. But the pandemic “hit the sector hard” in Plymouth.
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The city is now back on track to grow as a tourist destination in 2025. The visitor plan developed by Destination Plymouth for 2020 to 2030 sets ambitious targets for continued growth.
It aims to position Plymouth as “the South West’s premier destination and a UK top ten city break, attracting more than 6million visitors. and considerable additional spend”. It says a new data hub is being developed to provide real time information, including footfall and spend, which will help Destination Plymouth target marketing more effectively and help businesses to plan.
And a new brand strategy for the city will be published in 2025 with the aim of growing the city’s population by encouraging people to live, work and study in Plymouth, not just to visit. Last month, PlymouthLive reported on how the city has appointed international consultants to give the city’s image a huge makeover in a bid to attract people to move here. The city, which expects to create 5,000 jobs by 2029, has recruited top creative and economic consultants to “refresh” the Britain’s Ocean City brand.
Amanda Lumley chief executive of Destination Plymouth, said: “Plymouth has strengthened its position as Britain’s Ocean City and a major South West city destination for shopping, leisure, heritage and culture over the past 10 years. Visitor growth pre-Covid 19 was very strong with more than 5.4million visitors in 2019 and we are continuing to see positive recovery.
“Working with the City Centre Company we will build on our strengths as we develop a proactive brand strategy and place marketing campaign to not just welcome more visitors but also new residents and talent to enjoy an outstanding quality of life in our vibrant, cultural city centre.”
Details of the tourism vision is set out in Plymouth City Centre Company’s newly published Draft Business Plan for 2025 to 2030. Businesses will vote next month on whether to extend the Business Improvement District for another five years.
The 44-page document, which is being consulted on, also contains details of how the city centre is predicted to evolve. It said the vision is to “position the city centre as the major retail, visitor and leisure destination on the South West peninsula and a great place to live, work, play and study”.
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