West's visitor economy steadily recovering since pandemic - research

The visitor economy in the west of England has steadily recovered since the pandemic and is now worth a record £2.46 billion, according to new research from Visit West.

The latter is the accredited Local Visitor Economy Partnership (LVEP), which represents the tourism industry across Bristol, Bath and north east Somerset, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset.

It aims to encourage people to stay longer in the region, exploring what it has to offer, with their spend supporting high streets and small businesses.

Its research, which looked at the volume and value of the visitor economy in 2023, also showed that the visitor economy in the west of England supports 46,000 jobs.

The biggest beneficiaries of visitor spend are the retail sector - with an estimated £409 million (m) - followed by food and drink businesses (£342m) and accommodation (£200m).

Visit West's managing director Kathryn Davis said: We are delighted that the industry continues to strengthen post Covid, and while we are nearly into 2025, we can see from our own data that 2024 in general looks to have built on the 2023 recovery.

But she added: "Operating conditions for businesses remain incredibly challenging and we will continue to lobby for those working in the visitor economy, and continue to develop strong routes to market through our work with the travel trade, meeting and event organisers and through our consumer channels Visit Bath and Visit Bristol."

Notably, the research showed that inbound international visits to the region have seen a particular rise, growing by 21% to 957,000, just 14% behind the pre-pandemic record high in 2019.

Bristol was listed as the seventh most visited destination by inbound visitors, while Bath came in 11th (joint with Cardiff).

Combined staying visits to the region have increased in total by 2%, with an encouraging increase in spend of 7%, the work showed.

In addition, according to the research, domestic staying visits from UK tourists fell by 3% to 2.86 million, however, the number of domestic day visitors to the region increased by 5%.

Domestic day visitors to the region, meanwhile, spent 22% more than the previous year, and 10% more than in 2019, despite the number of day visitors being 15% lower than that record year.

Davis added: "We are looking forward to a strong 2025 with demand from Jane Austen 250, Women’s Rugby World Cup and VisitBritain’s national campaign Starring Great Britain celebrating film and TV locations."

Data for this year (2024) will be available late in 2025.