Has Liverpool Culture Company backed a winner?

Apr 2 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

As the final preparations get under way for the Grand National, Liam Christopher looks at how the event boosts the region’s economy

THE pundits can have their favourites for this weekend’s Grand National, but time will tell whether Liverpool will be the big winner of this year’s world- famous steeplechase meeting.

The three-day horse racing event is expected to break all records and deliver its highest ever takings.

There will be a starting line by which to measure the impact of this year’s meeting, and it will demonstrate clearly whether the publicity surrounding Capital of Culture Year has provided an extra boost to the local economy.

Liverpool Culture Company always cites the extra influx of visitors and tourists as one of the real benefits of the showpiece year.

Even though the Aintree meeting takes place in neighbouring Sefton, a successful Grand National will have a bigger impact on Liverpool.

The weather could be a factor, but providing there are not too many April showers, the organisers are confident the crowd will break modern attendance totals.

There is no doubt the improved marketing surrounding Aintree in recent years has upped the stakes and made the meeting one of the most spectacular crowd pullers.

A survey last year calculated £17.2m was injected into the local economy as a direct result of the Grand National.

This included the cost of hotels, meals, entertainment, taxi, bus and train fares, everything except the stakes placed on the horses running at Aintree. Significantly, the study showed £11m of that total was spent by racing fans from outside the Liverpool area, in other words vitally needed “imported” cash.

The total attendance figure last year was just over 148,000, an impressive tally, though around 3,000 fewer than the crowd generated a few years earlier.

It is hard to predict the outcome for the wider economy of this year’s meeting, but to justify their existence it could be safe to conclude that a spend nearer £20m will be needed from the Culture Year meeting.

Last year, the big day meeting, ahead of the Grand National, included a priceless eight-minute travelogue of Liverpool and Merseyside, fronted by Sue Barker and delivered to a global audience of 600m television viewers. The hope is this will drive up attendance figures in Culture year.

Judging by the hotel bookings for National week across Merseyside and beyond, the signs are good.

So how can the sums be done, ensuring that an accurate picture is generated? Last year, researchers from England’s Northwest Research Service for Economic Development and Tourism carried out the survey.

The survey team, based at The Mersey Partnership offices at Princes Dock, was asked to carry out an evaluation looking at the visitor profile of racegoers, advertising awareness and the economic impact of the event. In total, they conducted 511 face-to-face interviews, proportionate to the attendances on each of the three days of the race event.

Those interviews provided a snapshot that enabled a report to be compiled showing the economic impact of the Aintree meeting.

The survey was conducted mainly for Aintree’s owners, though it provided good ammunition for The Mersey Partnership, the city region’s main tourism promoters who are also responsible for attracting investment to Liverpool and Merseyside.

Given that it is in the interests of TMP to hail the event a success, can the figures be trusted as representative of an accurate picture of the impact of the Grand National meeting?

Martin King, director of tourism at TMP, stands by the results and is confident of their accuracy.

Said Mr King: “These findings are based on a specially-commissioned piece of independent research conducted in accordance with the Market Research Society’s code of conduct.

“They underline the value of the event to our wider visitor economy and the impact it has on the whole destination.”

Mr King has no doubt the Grand National meeting is a major tourism magnet for Liverpool and its neighbouring boroughs, particularly Sefton and Wirral.

HE SAID research showed the real value of the race meeting to the economy.

“It demonstrated the success we are achieving with our partners in promoting the event as a short break spectacular, culminating in the Grand National. More and more Grand National visitors are enjoying both their racing and their time staying in our destination.

England’s Northwest Research Service has been commissioned to conduct further economic impact research for the 2008 John Smith’s Grand National meeting, providing the prospect of a comparison between 2007 and 2008.

The researchers carry out many number-crunching exercises, not aimed specifically at revealing success stories, but also to detect any weaknesses that need to be addressed in the local economy.

They are used on projects across the North West.

The research team will be mingling with the racegoers from tomorrow, asking similar questions to last year.

Shops, bars and restaurants across Liverpool and Merseyside will benefit, thanks to Aintree.

Jennina O’Neil, marketing manager at the trendy Metquarter, in Liverpool city centre, said: “There is clear evidence that local people are contributing to the economy in the run-up to the Grand National by spending significant amounts in the shops, buying clothes, suits, shoes, hats, jewellery and more, to have great outfits for the races.

“Retail tenants at the Metquarter are making the most of this demand and racing enthusiasm, from stores running exclusive races ranges to racing discounts to jockey-themed window displays.”

Peter Stoney, economist at the University of Liverpool, questions whether the Grand National needs to be linked at all to Capital of Culture.

“It has its own world-wide reputation among racing enthusiasts and people will flock to Aintree no matter what the weather.

“But it has been included in the culture year programme, so it will be interesting to see what impact this cultural badge will make on the National. Personally, I believe the Culture Company would be better concentrating on cultural events in and around the area and leave the National to do its own thing, which it seems to do very well.

“But as they have included the Grand National, it would be disappointing if, as a general rule of thumb, the return was not an increase in attendance and economic impact of around 10%.

“I look forward to seeing figures produced afterwards to illustrate whether there has indeed been any Culture year impact on Aintree.”

Last year was the culmination of a multi-million pound improvement scheme at Aintree. Two impressive grandstands, the Earl of Derby and the Lord Sefton were opened, as well as the new equestrian centre, temporary home last year of Liverpool’s Summer Pops.