There is demand for more hotels in Glasgow, a tourism leader has said, with evidence visitors attending conferences want to "augment" their experience with a longer stay.
An additional 20 new hotels are planned for the city by 2025 and more than half will be four or five-stars.
Glasgow currently has two five-star hotels: the Kimpton Blythswood Square and Hotel du Vin in the city's west end.
More beds will help drive a new seven-year strategy which aims to increase tourism value by 10% by 2030 and was officially launched today at Trades Hall.
Glasgow should do more to exploit its position as the "perfect gateway" to the rest of Scotland, said Baillie Annette Christie, City Convener for Culture, Sport and International Relations.
She said Glasgow had enjoyed one of its most successful years in 2022 in terms of visitor numbers, citing the success of the UCI cycling championships and the Banksy exhibition.
Glasgow welcomed 2.65million visitors in 2022, each spending an average of three days and bolstering the economy by £1.58billion.
READ MORE: New Glasgow city centre hotel will create 60 jobs
Tourism leaders want to improve on this with a focus on the events sector, hospitality and leisure and conferences.
Glasgow needs to work on developing a "compelling range of bookable experiences" to capitalise on a growth in international visitors.
The city will host the World Indoor Athletics Championships next year and Glasgow International 2024, a major contemporary art festival.
Research carried out the inform the strategy found that Glasgow generally leaves a positive impression on first-time visitors.
This, it said, underlines the importance of "street cleanliness and a well-maintained public realm".
Five new hotels opened in Glasgow in 2021 adding over 1000 beds (low to mid-range budget) with an additional four arriving in 2022.
Virgin Hotels Glasgow, the group’s second site in Scotland, opened in August a year later than planned and the second House of Gods Hotel is set to open in Glasgow in December, after a successful launch of the Edinburgh property in 2020.
Peter Duthie, chairman of Glasgow Tourism Partnership and Chief Executive of the SEC, said there was evidence that visitors attending conferences were seeking to spend longer in the city.
READ MORE: First look at opulent House of Gods hotel planned in Glasgow
Glasgow welcomes more conference delegates than anywhere else in the UK outside London and he said, increasingly, event organisers were choosing cities which are looking to become more sustainable.
He said: "Even just looking at the SEC in isolation, the volume of events is increasing, we had our busiest year ever last year.
"Visitors are looking to augment their experience, stay overnight and attend events and all of that drives significant demand for hotel beds in the city."
He said the American visitor market was "strong" but it was also about encouraging more, domestic visitors to head north.
He said that increasing the average stay of visitors was about more clearly identifying target markets and a "deep dive" into this area is planned.
He said: "It's about understanding who is coming, what are their aspirations and making sure we enhance what Glasgow has to offer and tell the story of what Glasgow has to offer as well as we can to ensure that we encourage people to stay a couple of extra days."
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