The Initiative
Business Improvement District
Blackpool Tourism BID
Blackpool is the most popular tourist destination in the UK with 18 million visitors generating £1.5b.
Yet the number of overnight stays and average spend has been falling against a backdrop of enhanced competition, a tourism offer in need of refreshing and the core challenges of identifying a sustainable model for funding the illuminations and other events and the quality and maintenance of the public space in the town centre.
A number of initiatives are underway to stimulate the local economy including a new conference centre, hotel stock, pleasure beach attraction and infrastructure developments with their associated public realm enhancement. Further opportunity presents itself at the Central Leisure Quarter to expand Blackpool’s overall tourism offer.
The current and potential tourism focused Business Improvement District has a role to play in helping to stimulate and support future growth and the management of both the retail and tourism offer in partnership with the Council, VisitBlackpool, Business in the Community and other relevant organisations and business interests.
£1m investment in Blackpool’s tourist economy
The TBID is designed to help navigate Blackpool’s recovery from COVID-19 and take a lead role on behalf of the tourism sector on projects that matter most to businesses in terms of attracting visitors and keeping them coming back.
The business plan illustrates how we can use our collective effort and resource to focus on protecting and developing a vibrant tourism economy by working in partnership with leisure, accommodation, retail, food and drink businesses, and statutory authorities to deliver a strong, cohesive, business-led growth strategy for Blackpool.
This is an opportunity to pump-prime Blackpool’s tourism economy and help realise its future potential through a TBID that can deliver:
- £1m of investment in Blackpool’s tourist economy over five years
- A greater say in what is happening
- Increased footfall, spend and dwell time/overnight stays
- More customers spending more money in your business
Understanding
The Project
Blackpool continues to retain a unique place in the nation’s imagination, and as one of the most densely developed boroughs in Britain with 140,000 residents, Blackpool’s past and present are inextricably linked with the tourist industry.
Blackpool continues to retain a unique place in the nation’s imagination, its past and present inextricably linked with the tourist industry.
Destination Management Organisations play a key role in developing tourism locally; destinations are the places that people want to visit and experience, they are the heart and soul of the visitor economy.