Industry update #9

Amplifying your voice

As we look towards recovery from COVID-19 imposed lockdown, it is essential that Government understands the needs of the tourism and hospitality industry and how crucial it will be terms of the big picture economic recovery of the country.

Tourism was worth £9 billion and supported 101,000 jobs in Greater Manchester in 2018 and amongst eight English Core Cities – Birmingham/West Midlands, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Greater Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield – that figure is estimated to be around £33 billion and 375,000 jobs.

Across the Core Cities, it is estimated that up to the end of August 2020, some £13 billion will have been lost from the tourism economy so it is more important than ever that we work together on recovery. We are keyed into many national discussions about this and have been amplifying the concerns that you – our partners and members – have communicated to us.

This week, in addition to hosting our regular Tourism Industry Emergency Response (TIER) group, we took part in the first meeting of the Greater Manchester Economic Recovery Communications Group. Chaired by Mike Blackburn, the group comprises of representation from Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Pro Manchester, Manchester Hoteliers Association, CityCo, Manchester Central, Transport for Greater Manchester, Manchester City Council, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Manchester Airports Group, Bruntwood and Capital & Centric. The group will oversee the marketing and communications activity aimed at driving confidence and trust in business, employees and visitor audiences.

Watch now: business tourism, meetings and events webinar

This week we held a special webinar focused on the impact of COVID-19 on the business tourism, meeting and events industry, where a highly-respected panel of speakers discussed a range of issues, reactions, and forecasting for the industry whilst sharing ideas, best practice and opportunities for Greater Manchester as plans for recovery are starting to be made.

The webinar engaged with our business tourism, prestige and partner members; however, the full webinar is now available to everyone, including non-members, and can be viewed here.

The webinar was delivered in the same week that it was revealed that Manchester jumped 11 places above its 2018 position in the influential International Congress and Convention Association’s (ICCA) annual report. Manchester is recognised as a global player, converting 35 ICCA approved conference. Full story here.

Manchester Misses You campaign

The campaign, featured on the Visit Manchester website provides visitors with vibrant virtual content including cultural and education experiences from across Greater Manchester, that can be enjoyed from home.

The response to the campaign has been fantastic; we have published over 65 articles on the website, which has received 40,000 visitors over the past few weeks, 650,000 impressions on Twitter and over 1.7 million impressions on Facebook.

We need more of your great content to share across our channels to keep feeding the campaign and showcasing the breath of our brilliant destination. Recent features include:

Please send all contributions to stuart.aiken@marketingmanchester.com.

Partner and member tourism news

In addition to sharing content for our Manchester Misses You campaign, we are keen to receive tourism news stories from our partners and members that we can amplify via our corporate channels as we gradually move out of lockdown. Recent submissions include:

If you have your own news to share please email it to press@marketingmanchester.com FAO of Andy Parkinson. Please also add this email address to your media/press distribution lists.

English Tourism Week

It’s never been more important that we collectively shout about the value of tourism and the contribution it makes to the economy. We are therefore supporting VisitEngland’s annual campaign to raise awareness of the industry, English Tourism Week, will start on Bank Holiday Monday 25 May until Sunday 31 May.

This year, the event will take place “virtually” with MPs and industry tweeting their support for English tourism on social media with the hashtag #EnglishTourismWeek20.

We encourage all of our partners and members to join in the campaign by downloading specially designed “I Support English Tourism” signs from the VisitEngland website and posting about tourism from your social media accounts. If posting on Twitter, please tag @marketing_mcr so that we can retweet you.

Find out more about English Tourism Week and download the campaign artwork here.

Tourism and Hospitality Support Hub

To make sure that tourism and hospitality businesses are given the most up to date information, we continue to service the Tourism and Hospitality Support Hub to signpost and connect the sector to advice, webinars, support and guidance across a variety of areas.

The Hub includes a series of FAQs. If you have any specific questions or would like to talk to someone, we have set up an email address and number to contact us on: supporthub@marketingmanchester.com.

Useful links

Business support and advice

Health and well being

Surveys, workshops and webinars

Other

https://theredhat.co.uk