Tourism Visitor Data shows Airport Chaos & Heatwaves is Attracting Millions More Tourists To UK Seaside Towns

Place Informatics, the leading provider of footfall and location visitor behaviour data monitoring in the UK, believes that visitor behaviour insights are the key to managing and regenerating many tourist hotspots, town centres and high streets across the UK.

New Visitor data from the leading firm has shown that the top ten seaside towns in the UK are seeing a huge increase in popularity over the last 12 months with some attracting millions more visitors than the previous year. The popular southern seaside town of Brighton has seen an increase of 6.7 million more visitors in the last 12 months (June 21 – May 22) compared to the previous (June 20 – May 21). Blackpool saw an increase of 5.2 million and Bournemouth 3.5 million as staycations and the increasingly warm weather is driving a surge of visitors to the popular beaches and towns.

The data also shows these popular seaside towns, their beaches, high streets, green spaces, facilities and particular businesses are being utilised and this information gives local councils vital insights to help manage these huge increases in visitors. Parking, resourcing and also increasing local facilities, services and popular businesses for tourists are key to ensuring the towns can manage and understand their visitors.

The insights also show what catchment areas tourists are visiting from and seasonal and daily, weekly and monthly variations, so councils can plan in advance to ensure the towns can cope with their increased popularity. This data is also vital to retailers, hospitality and other local businesses so they can plan for peak periods to ensure that they have the right staff and infrastructure in place.

Clive Hall, CEO of Place Informatics, commented, “It is great to see these popular seaside towns attracting so many more visitors over the last 12 months, but these huge increases can impact local businesses, services and infrastructure if not managed correctly. Our data helps these seaside towns understand their visitors and helps them plan to minimise any negative impact of this increased popularity and ensure these additional visitors are a positive for the towns and their businesses.

We offer local councils and businesses detailed insights to show how visitors are behaving when visiting town centres on a daily basis and also for regular or special events for the public. We can also provide details of the postcode area that visitors have travelled from, giving town centre managers and retailers the information needed to make informed choices and maximise the return from these.” 

For more information on location visitor data and insights visit placeinformatics.com.