- 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 £131 million in conference sales in the year ending March 09, which equated to 494,150 delegate days. Around 32% of all sales secured were attributed to Glasgow Conference Ambassadors. The Glasgow Conference Ambassador Programme is supported by more than 2,000 members drawn from the local medical, scientific, academic and business communities.
- Events supported – or managed by - GCMB in 2008/09 resulted in a further £18.4 million in local economic benefit, representing an increase of £2.1 million over the previous year. Event attendances rose from 435,062 in 2007/08 to 524,294 in 2008/09 and unique visitor events were 302,735, up slightly on 2007/08, of which 191, 203 were from outwith Glasgow.
- 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 accommodation.
- 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.
- Latest figures show some 31,000 people were employed in tourism related activities in Glasgow throughout 2006, representing 17% of the total tourism workforce in Scotland.
- The area is served by two airports – Glasgow Airport, which is around 7 miles west of the city, and Glasgow Prestwick Airport, which is 30 miles to the south. Yearly passenger traffic to the end of May 2009 at Glasgow stood at 7.7 million, while 2.4 million passengers travelled through Prestwick during the same period.
- 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.
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- Glasgow’s main retail thoroughfare, Buchanan Street, has been named as the finest shopping street in Britain by the Academy of Urbanism. 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.
ENDS June 2009
Note: Main sources are: the UK Tourism Survey, the International Passenger Survey, the Annual Business Inquiry survey, VisitScotland Tourism Survey 2007; BAA Glasgow; Prestwick Airport Official Figures; The Academy of Urbanism Awards 2008, Experian Business Strategies: Retail Ranking 2008 and the Greater Glasgow Hotels Association's occupancy survey undertaken by Lynn Jones Research Ltd., representing 5,924 rooms, and the VisitBritain Delegate Expenditure Survey 2006.