STUART PATRICK
Tourism has been a success story in Glasgow, and last week the city’s leadership group for the industry promoted its action plan until 2023.
Growing Glasgow’s tourism was always an important goal of delivering the Commonwealth Games, and the aim of the action plan is clear - an extra one million visitors to the city each year, injecting more than £750m to the economy. The signs for this are positive.
The latest report from tourism market specialists LJ Research on Scottish city centre hotels showed that Glasgow has a room occupancy rate at 87.5%, with bookings up in four out of the next six months.
Glasgow Airport reported record passenger traffic in 2016, with over 9.4 million passengers, up 7.5% on the previous year. There were 25 new routes launched, including to major European cities such as Marseilles, Sofia and Brussels and to long haul destinations like Toronto and Seoul.
The SECC reported an increase of 18% in conference business to its year end in March 2016, and a 17% growth in turnover from exhibitions - with 1.8million visitors to the venue helping to generate over £300m for the Scottish economy. The neighbouring SSE Hydro stayed in the top three global live entertainment arenas in the Pollstar rankings.
The future sporting calendar looks very healthy - the Badminton World Championships in 2017, the inaugural European Championships in 2018 hosted jointly with Berlin, the European Indoor Athletics Championships in 2019 and host city status for UEFA Euro 2020 football.
Investment in cultural assets is also strong, with a refurbished Burrell due to reopen in 2020 and the next phase of the Kelvin Hall redevelopment giving the University of Glasgow’s Hunterian collection a new home, helping to create a museums district alongside Kelvingrove.
The City Deal’s programme to update some of the city centre’s very tired public realm gets underway in Sauchiehall Street this year.
One remaining concern though is the delay being caused to the redevelopment of Buchanan Galleries. Almost every major city around Britain has been attracting heavy investment in its retail core, making it ever more likely that Glasgow will soon lose its status as the number two retail centre in the UK outside London.
The £400m private investment proposals from Land Securities would help keep Glasgow at number two. but they are stuck in negotiations with Network Rail at Queen Street station. Let's get that sorted out quickly.
Stuart Patrick is chief executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
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