Glasgow: Volume and Value of Tourism

The city of Glasgow attracts 2.8 million visitors per annum who generate £700 million for the local economy.

Glasgow was the fourth most visited city by overseas tourists in the UK in 2007.  With 755,000 visitors to the city, it was ahead of the likes of Liverpool, Birmingham and Cardiff.  It was also the third most visited city in the UK by North Americans, behind only London and Edinburgh.

GCMB's Convention Bureau secured £151 million in conference sales in the year ending March 08, which represented a 3 per cent increase over 2006/07 and equated to 543,000 delegate days.  The Glasgow Conference Ambassador Programme is supported by more than 2,000 members drawn from the local medical, scientific, academic and business communities.  The Conference Ambassador Programme accounted for 23% of all conference business secured in 2007/08.

Events secured by GCMB in 2007/08 resulted in a further £16.3 million in local economic benefit representing an increase of £12.1 million over the previous year.  Event attendances rose from 252,160 in 2006/07 to 435,062 in 2007/08.

The number of hotel bedrooms within a 10-mile radius of Glasgow city centre has risen again to 8239.  There has been an overall increase of over 40% in visitor beds in the last seven years.  The total number of rooms for the Metropolitan Glasgow area is 17,102, which includes guest houses, B&Bs and university accomodation.

Latest figures show some 31,000 people were employed in tourism related activities in Glasgow throughout 2005 and 2006, representing 17% of the total tourism workforce in Scotland.

Occupancy of Glasgow hotels averaged 73.9% from April 2008-February 2009.  This drop from 77.1% between April 2007 and March 2008 is attributed to the global economic downturn.

The area is served by two airports – Glasgow International Airport, which is around 7 miles west of the city, and Glasgow Prestwick Airport, which is 30 miles to the south. From January - December 2008 passenger traffic at Glasgow stood at 8.1 million while almost 2.4 million passengers travelled through Prestwick during 2008.

Glasgow has been named the top place to shop outside London for the fourth time in a row and is expected to hold the title for the next 10 years.  Experian Business Strategies, one of the UK’s leading economic forecasting consultancies, reported Glasgow came a clear second in the UK 2008 Retail Ranking because of the continuing success of its key shopping districts. 

Glasgow’s main retail thoroughfare, Buchanan Street, has been named by the Academy of Urbanism as the finest shopping street in Britain.  Key criteria for “The Great Street Award 2008” accolade included local character, distinctiveness, user-friendliness, and commercial success.  Buchanan Street scored highly in each of these categories, beating off competition from Regent Street in London and O’Connell Street in Dublin.