Agenda item

The City Centre Director submits a report giving details of the economic impact of Richard III on the tourism and visitor economy in the city during the period from the discovery to the re-interment.

Councillor Clair, Assistant City Mayor for Culture, Leisure and Sport introduced the report which had been commissioned by Focus Consultants and funded through the European Regional Development Fund. The report covered the timeframe from the discovery of King Richard III (KRIII) upto March 2015 and deliberately did not include the reinterment.

The City Director outlined the details in the report and explained it was important to commission an objective piece of work which showed that overall the amount spent paled into insignificance when considering the amount it had generated for the city. The report excluded the 2 weeks of the reinterment as figures would have been distorted by the volume of people coming into the city during that period. The figures in the report were based on the best available data and used industry accepted methods to calculate outcomes.

Members were informed that some of the economic benefits to Leicester as a result of the discovery of KRIII included:

·       1012 full time jobs were created,

·       Total Volunteering hour’s 11635, this gave a value of £118,566. Volunteers played a significant part during the whole event, trip advisor described Leicester as a very friendly and welcoming city,

·       Visitors Numbers to Leicester showed an increase of 2.6% from 2012-2013

·       Retail businesses had increased by 4.42% between 2011-2014 compared to 0.31% in the region

·       Accommodation and Food Services businesses had grown 9.8% compared to 2.56% in the East Midlands

·       Arts and Entertainments businesses had grown 13.48% compared to 0.4% in the East Midlands

·       Leicester was emerging strong and visits to all city museums had increased 11%,

·       There had been an increase in hotel occupancy from 2014-15 of 5% in Leicester

·       PR value alone amounted to £12million

·       Long list of companies now interested in coming to Leicester i.e. IBM and Hastings

The City Centre Director concluded with a number of points:

·       The discovery of KRIII had raised the profile of the city in the eyes of the world.

·       Now the city needed to upsell and the next challenge would be to open a new hotel in the city as occupancy figure had reached 85%

·       New jobs had been created not all were necessarily permanent as that depended on trajectory, however tourism gave opportunities to people who were unable to work full time and those under 30 especially.

Members discussed the report and congratulated the team on the achievements throughout the project.

The ensuing discussion also included the following comments:

·       It was hoped that tourists would be encouraged to stay for longer rather than just visit for one day or overnight.

·       Visitors to the City were surprised by what was on offer, a lot still thought of Leicester as an industrial city and found instead a very diverse city. Trip Advisor comments were very positive and well worth a read.

·       In relation to sustainability, tourism led to the growth of different target markets. When KRIII was found it was unexpected, the council quickly put in place a plan and open days and the temporary exhibition at Guildhall opened which attracted over 200k people. The council invested £35k in that and the Guildhall exhibition was closed deliberately 2 weeks before the visitor centre opened to increase interest, it was always known that the exhibitions had to be sustainable. The Cathedral obtained a HLF grant, interpretation panels were commissioned, the tomb created and the Cathedral gardens re-developed to create a visitor attraction. Since the reinterment visitor numbers have stayed robust.

·       Tourism Action Plan has been realised in the Tourism Forum being started.

·       The council had now purchased Vaughan College and were taking time to think what to do best and to link to Jubilee Square.

·       Interestingly the bid to be a host city for Rugby World Cup (RWC) was secured before KRIII was discovered but it all added to the picture for Leicester and KRIII had secured more visitors to RWC and vice versa

·       Social inclusion was something the project was very aware of at the outset and there were plenty of options for people to participate such as the walking trails and the Cathedral were adamant it would always be free to enter.

·       On the Economic side there were also 15 new businesses around the Market Street side of the City Centre

·       For a long time the medieval history of this city was overshadowed for Leicester’s industrial history and sporting history. Leicester has many stories because it is such an old city.

The Chair commented that Leicester had shown it was brave enough to invest and that had paid off.

RESOLVED:

                    That the contents of the report be noted.