Industry Update: 19 August 2020

Latest guidance on local restrictions and holidays

Guidance from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and the UK Government on local restrictions across Greater Manchester to minimise the spread of COVID-19 remain in place for the time being – with additional measures in Oldham and relaxed lockdown in Wigan.

Oldham will be subject to tighter restrictions, and it is understood people in Oldham will not be able to socialise with any other household in any place; including not meeting in parks, beer gardens, restaurants or any other outdoor space with anyone except their own household. People from Oldham should also avoid using public transport, unless they are going to school or work.

Wigan will be released from the local lockdown tonight (Friday 21 August), following unanimous support from leaders from across all ten boroughs and Greater Manchester’s Mayor, Andy Burnham. Due to a consistently low infection rate in Wigan, the area will now be subject to the UK-wide general restrictions – whilst the rest of Greater Manchester will retain local lockdown rules.

The official guidance for the rest of Greater Manchester reiterates the main point that different households should not mix indoors, including at venues such as museums and galleries, hotels, pubs, bars and restaurants. Additionally, face coverings should now be used at a range of tourism, hospitality and leisure businesses and attractions – a full list can be found here.  Additionally, face coverings should now be used at a range of tourism, hospitality and leisure businesses and attractions – a full list can be found here.

The government has also published further guidance on visiting areas under local lockdowns, which includes information and responsibilities for accommodation providers on Working Safely and information on facilitating business meetings and events. If you have not read this yet, please do so.

It is incredibly important we abide by these temporary rules, in addition to social distancing and frequent hand washing, in order to avoid more stringent measures being brought in should the rate of infection rise significantly.

The situation can change at any point, so we continue to ask our partners to stay vigilant, follow the rules and get in touch with our Tourism and Hospitality Support Hub team if you need support.

Find Your Space campaign update

We’re delighted to let you know that since launching our Find Your Space campaign the website has received 13.500 page views and our #FindYourSpaceMCR social media content has generated 580,000 impressions on Twitter and 1.8 million impressions on Facebook.

This week we also received some figures relating to the exposure of our Find Your Space adverts during the international test matches at Emirates Old Trafford last month. Some 15 million viewers watched across four days, with an average live audience of 502,000 plus 900,000 people catching the highlights who would have seen our banners around the stadium.

The Find Your Space campaign was due to work in coordination with the government’s Enjoy Summer Safely Campaign. This however is temporarily being paused in Greater Manchester and will restart as soon as the local restrictions are lifted.

We are continuously updating the content on these pages as well as our Manchester pages as usual, so if you have useful content or contributions please continue to send them to Ryan.Maley@marketingmanchester.com.

In case you missed it: Space to Learn campaign launched

As part of the Find Your Space recovery campaign we have been working with the five Greater Manchester universities; University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, Bolton University, Salford University and UA92 on a campaign to attract students for the coming academic year.

Our Space to Learn campaign aims to position Greater Manchester’s exemplary offer as well as the associated lifestyle factors that attract potential students to Greater Manchester and will run throughout August and September to target potential students nationwide.

The University of Manchester campaign is now live with adverts appearing on Ocean Outdoors big screens in several cities across the UK as well as at Manchester Piccadilly Station and along the Mancunian Way.

For more information contact Tim.Manley@marketingmanchester.com

NatWest North of England Tourism Business Barometer – second data set released

As reported in previous updates, Marketing Manchester is leading a contingent of DMOs – including Cumbria Tourism, Make It York, Marketing Cheshire, Marketing Lancashire, Marketing Liverpool, NewcastleGateshead Initiative, Visit County Durham and Visit Leeds – to deliver a fortnightly business barometer which will measure the UK post-lockdown tourism business environment including shifts in employment, trends in revenue and overall business confidence.

The barometer is supported and funded by NatWest and will run for three months until the end of October. An initial data set was released a few weeks ago to set a benchmark to report against each fortnight – click here to access it.

A second data set has now been received, which reveals some subtle shifts across the key metrics. We are monitoring these shifts and we will provide further detailed analysis in the coming weeks.

To read more about the barometer click here.

DCMS Coronavirus Impact Business Survey

DCMS is undertaking a second wave of their Coronavirus Impact survey in order to better understand the impact of the Coronavirus outbreak on organisations in the digital, culture, media, sport, gambling, telecoms, and tourism sectors and what needs to be done to support businesses.

The survey should take around 10-20 minutes and the deadline for responses will be at 23:59 GMT on Tuesday 8 September 2020. If you would like to take part, please click here.

2020 UK Conference & Meeting Survey (UKCAMS)

We realise there are a lot of surveys out there at the moment and that your time is precious; however, this one is really important for any of our partners that host conference and business events.

The 2020 UK Conference & Meeting Survey (UKCAMS) will evidence the value of business events activity to the UK and will provide the 2019 baseline for the sector’s recovery and ensure that targets for growth further build on this position as we move forward.

If you have not yet participated for your venue, please do so before Friday 4 September by clicking here.

UK Government Coronavirus business support webinars

We hope that you have found our own set of business support webinars that we have delivered in recent months useful. Our most recent webinar provided detail on the vast range of support that we can offer the tourism, hospitality and leisure industries via the Tourism and Hospitality Talent Hub which you can watch again – just click here and filling in your details.

Now, as part of the UK government’s commitment to supporting businesses and self-employed through the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, HMRC have developed a set of new webinars on the following topics which you can sign up to attend or re-watch for free:

  • Extension to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and flexible furloughing webinar – Monday 17 August. Access to watch again here.
  • Eat out to help out scheme webinar – Wednesday 19 August. Access to watch again here.
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19) Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme webinar – Thursday 20 August. Register here.
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19) Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, Universal Credit and Child Benefit webinar – Friday 21 August. Register here.

Partner news you should know about

Some welcome news from our partners that we think you should know about:

Please email your news to press@marketingmanchester.com FAO of Andy Parkinson and also add this email address to your media/press distribution lists.

Tourism and Hospitality Support Hub

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis the Tourism and Hospitality Support Hub has been available to ensure that tourism and hospitality businesses are given the most up to date information including reopening standards and guidance. We have streamlined the Hub to give the most useful information; however, we will continue to deliver the service throughout the reopening of the visitor economy and anyone who needs specific and detailed support should contact supporthub@marketingmanchester.com for bespoke help and advice.

Latest links

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