It was recently reported that Birmingham has been named the best UK destination for tourists for the second successive year. However, it appears that its northern rival Manchester is also attracting its fair share of visitors, with hotel occupancy reaching a record high in the first eight months of 2014.
According to data compiled by Marketing Manchester, the average hotel occupancy rate for the city centre reached 76 per cent in the eight months to the beginning of September. This comfortably outperforms peak levels reached in the pre-recession years of 2006 and 2007.
In part, the growth of Manchester as a prime business destination has contributed to the strong performance by the hotels sector, as occupancy rates during the week averaged 75 per cent. However, Manchester’s strength remains in its popularity as a night life and weekend entertainment destination, with weekend rates averaging an impressive 81 per cent.
Andrew Stokes, chief executive of Marketing Manchester, states that the city’s tourism bodies will continue to strive to push occupancy rates even higher in the coming months.
He says; “We are thrilled with the latest hotel occupancy data which indicates a significant achievement for our hotel and tourism industry.
“Current demand means that we are now exceeding the rates experienced in pre-recession years, but we are also in the cusp of a dramatic increase in supply to meet this.
“The challenge will now be to make the most of this opportunity for further growth and to sustain occupancy figures as room numbers increase – a number of hotel operators that are brand new to Greater Manchester have shown their confidence in the industry by investing here and we will work with them and existing hotels to help continue the occupancy trajectory.”
As Mr Stokes points out, a number of hotel chains are currently looking to either expand their existing operations in Manchester or create a foothold in the city for the first time. At present, Manchester city centre has around 7,000 hotel rooms, which grows to around 19,500 when the wider Greater Manchester area is taken into account.
However, the North West city has a number of exciting developments in the pipeline that will see this number increase dramatically over the next few years. In the city centre alone, there are 2,100 hotel rooms either in the planning or construction stages, while in Greater Manchester this figure increases to 2,700.
Manchester’s strength as a business destination increased dramatically with the opening of MediaCity at Salford Quays which, along with drawing visitors to the city, saw a wave of new businesses in the technology, media and creative industries established.
This, along with a boom in visitors, has seen Manchester’s tourism sector generate £6.6 billion per year for the Greater Manchester economy and allow for the creation and support of 84,000 full time equivalent jobs.
