How much is a dead king worth? Well, according to Leicester’s Chamber of Commerce, around £14m – hardly a king’s ransom, but good to have all the same.
The recent discovery of King Richard III’s body beneath a car park in the city amounts to a 1% boost to Leicester’s £1.4bn pa visitor and leisure take, says the chamber, and could create 300 jobs.
A temporary exhibition at the Guildhall has attracted nearly 30,000 visitors in two months – it is a sign of the pulling power of the Plantagenet brand, say excited locals. A new visitor centre is also being planned.
Thirty miles up the M1 motorway, Nottingham’s civic chiefs are watching with interest and alarm. Their tourist bet is on an earlier, unquestionably evil, Plantagenet – King John – and his relationship with the notorious wealth re-distributor Robin Hood.
So is a united front to be had in the battle to boost tourist spending in the East Midlands?
Chris Melia is a director at Colliers Destination Consulting, and an expert on heritage attractions. She is leading a team which is working on a major tourism review for Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire on behalf of the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership.
Although Leicester is outside her patch, Melia sees real scope in Richard III. “He’s a potential gift,” she says.
Economic benefits
Yet Melia sounds warnings, particularly about exaggerated claims for the economic benefits. A lot of numbers will be “nonsense” she says, not least because much spending will not be additional, but instead diverted from other leisure attractions.
As for visitor centres, she says: “It is always easy to over-estimate how much appetite everyone else has for visiting attractions, and not ask how many trips to visitor attractions you make yourself. It really is quite a fragile business opportunity. For proof, look at how few are operated commercially.”
Is Melia pouring cold water on Plantagenet high hopes, or is it merely a case of cold facts? After all, even Robin Hood, a brand with truly global appeal, couldn’t take enough from the rich to sustain a Nottingham visitor centre, which closed in 2009.
The most obvious commercial spin-offs for both Leicester and Nottingham are in the hotel sector. But hotel occupancy data – and local sentiment – suggests there are enough empty beds already.
Paul Michael, chair of the Nottingham Hoteliers Association, says: “We welcome any developments of this kind, which are sure to increase the number of bed nights in the city. Nottingham has plenty of capacity to absorb this increased demand, so we look forward to the attractions when they open.”
Meanwhile, accountancy firm BDO’s monthly hotel occupancy data suggests spare capacity and no immediate call for new hotel development.
Robert Barnard, partner in the firm’s hospitality team, says: “You’d want hotel occupancy rates climbing above 70% to see scope for new development, and that’s not what we’re getting in the East Midlands.”
In 2012, hotel occupancy in Leicester was just 58.3%, and in Nottingham 59.1%. The first few months of 2013 were particularly good for Leicester, which recorded 65% occupancy in February – and the second fastest growth of any city in the UK. Could this be an early sign of Richard III appeal? Barnard warns that spring occupancy data tends to be flattering.
“The difficulty with attractions in the East Midlands is that the region is very accessible for day trips – so new hotel demand could be marginal,” he says.
Five-star ambitions
Leicester’s tourism chiefs hope the February hotel occupancy figures are a sign that their tourism market is approaching lift-off. The Leicester Economic Action Plan 2012-2020 already includes ambitions for a new four- or five-star city centre hotel.
Martin Peters, chief executive of Leicester Shire Promotions, explains: “We’ve seen a growth in visitors to the city on the back of the Richard III announcements and the existing hotel stock is sufficient to cope with demand. However, as we continue to work towards raising Leicester’s profile for both leisure and business visitors, we’re confident that any new investment will be led by a growth in demand for hotel beds.”
If locals have a complaint about tourist strategies, it is that they are not very ambitious. At Nottingham Castle, for instance, the plan is to aim for 350,000 visitors by 2025 – up from 200,000 today, but still well short of the 1m plus of major attractions.
Tim Garratt, director at Innes England in Nottingham, was a member of the Sheriff of Nottingham’s commission, which reported in 2010 on ways to boost tourism, Robin Hood, and the city’s under-used castle.
“The new plan isn’t as ambitious as we would have liked, but it’s better than nothing,” he says. “Nottingham has a fantastic asset in the castle and the Sheriff’s Commission was looking for ways to create a world-class attraction, which means 1m or more visitors a year. My personal disappointment is that the latest plans for the castle are not sufficiently ambitious.”
The fear, says Garratt, is that a modest plan will not provide enough reason for overnight stays – and any boost castle redevelopment could have given to the hotel sector will be lost.
Hard-core enthusiasts such as Bob White, a former Nottingham city council tourism boss and now chairman of the World Wide Robin Hood Society, say the city must capitalise on a global brand. “People are asking why nothing is being made of Robin Hood. It’s a constant embarrassment,” says White. However, he applauds the plans for the castle and for a visitor centre in Sherwood Forest and believes visitors will love it.
But despite his tourist industry interests, and Plantagenet-era enthusiasms, White says he has yet to make it to Leicester to see the Richard III exhibition.
Chris Melia’s warning – that tourist planners assume everyone else will be more inclined to visit attractions than they are themselves – begins to sound ominous. Richard III and Robin Hood had better watch out. They may not be as popular as they think.
Kings for the castle
As well as investing in the crowd-pleasing power of Robin Hood and the Plantagenet King John, Nottingham is placing a side bet on the glamorous Stuart dynasty’s star turn, Charles I.
A £15m Heritage Lottery funded redevelopment of Nottingham Castle is intended to wrap them both into a great day out, generating £77m for the city’s economy. A separate, but related, plan sees a £13m visitor centre developed in Sherwood Forest.
Ted Cantle, chairman of the city’s Castle Working Group, explains: “The castle has been underused for years, so this isn’t just going to be about Robin Hood. It’ll be the history of rebellion, including Charles I, who started his civil war campaign there.”
Making the most of Richard III
Leicester city council is planning a King Richard III visitor attraction in a Gothic revival wing of the former Leicester Grammar School buildings at St Martins Place.
The council has agreed to put £220,000 aside to cover a package of preliminary works. It could open in early 2014 and will be part of the city’s bid to be UK City of Culture 2017.
Liz Blyth, Leicester’s director of cultural services, says: “You can already hear American accents in the temporary Richard III exhibition at the Guildhall.
“No doubt, increased tourism will mean new and upgraded hotel space. There could be scope for more boutique hotels.”
