AAA White Paper The political economy of informal events, 2030 | Page 70

5. INFORMAL EVENTS AS BOOST TO URBAN TOURISM:
STILL AN OPPORTUNITY, BECOMING QUITE A CHALLENGE
For about a year after the Brexit referendum of June 2016, the numbers
and especially the spending of holidaymakers in the UK continued
with their reliable ascent, aided by a weak pound. But in 2017 there
was a sharp contraction, even if tourists from outside Europe and
North America set, in 2018, a new June record for visits to the UK.
So: will UK inbound tourism revive between now and 2030?
That partly depends on Britain improving the quality and quantity
of events it offers.
Whatever the upshot with Brexit, everyone working in UK tourism
will want informal events to be still more unmissable to the overseas
visitor than they are today. According to Market report 2017, published
by UK Festival Awards in 2018, 10 per cent of UK music festivalgoers
are tourists. That makes a crucial difference to tourism numbers
and spend – and to event organisers, too. However, as Mintel coolly
observes, the UK music concert and festivals sector
‘can’t rely on international visitors to keep the market afloat. If music fans
begin to cut back, or Brexit negotiations negatively impact music tourism, it
may begin to struggle.’
For 2030, events of all sorts need to work harder if they’re still to
capture the tourist pound.
Of course, events-based tourism doesn’t just benefit big cities. In
golf, the 2018 Open Championship, held at the small coastal town
Carnoustie, Scotland, generated £120m for the whole Scots economy,
with half of its 172,000 spectators hailing from outside Scotland.
Similarly, when English Heritage special adviser and events guru
Alon Shulman brought his business partner Paul Oakenfold to do the
first ever DJ performance at Stonehenge, it helped put Britain’s giant
stones on the map among fans in Italy, Latin America and Thailand.
Yet, on the whole, it is urban tourism in the UK, not the rural sort, that
is most underpinned by events. Here are four examples:
1. Hull’s year as 2017 UK City of Culture attracted no fewer than 5.3m
people to more than 2,800 events, cultural activities, installations and
exhibitions. Once Hull won the contest to be the UK’s cultural capital,
it pulled in £1bn of investment and perhaps £300m of business from
tourism. A series of events began to transform the city, allowing it to
make a decisive break from the time when it was once voted one of the
worst places to live in the UK.
2. Riffing off Hull, the local authority, the Chamber of Commerce
and local businesses in Leeds will hold its own city of culture year in
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