Bath city centre bars, restaurants and shops lost at least £142m during the first national Covid-19 lockdown while the cancellation of its iconic Christmas market will deal the city a further £13.6m blow, new figures reveal.
Data provided by credit card company Visa shows that expenditure lost to the hospitality and retail sectors in the city during the spring period of the pandemic was at least £142m compared to the same period last year.
Visa has been supplying anonymous details of credit card transactions in the city centre to Bath Business Improvement District (BID), the organisation representing nearly 500 firms in the city centre, since the beginning of last year.
Meanwhile, a survey of the UK’s 10 most popular Christmas markets by specialist printing company Where The Trade Buys shows that Bath’s economy will suffer a £13.6m hit this festive season from the cancellation of its award-winning market, pictured.
While Bath exited the second national lockdown this week in Tier 2, its city centre is expected to be particularly hard hit by the lack of the popular Christmas Market, which Visit Bath, the city’s destination marketing organisation, decided to shelve in July due to public safety concerns.
Since its launch 19 years ago the market has become the biggest and most lucrative events in the city’s tourism calendar, with its 200-plus stalls regularly attracting more than 400,00 visitors, earning millions of pounds in additional revenue for city centre retailers.
Last year it won the Tourism Event/Festival of the Year category at The South West England Tourism Excellence Awards and in 2017 was hailed as the UK’s best outdoor event and a benchmark for other cities’ festive markets by the National Outdoor Events Association (NOEA).
Where The Trade Buys’ calculation is based on the presumption that each visitor buys a minimum of one sweet snack, one savoury snack, two drinks, and pays to go ice skating, at a total cost of £34 a head.
Bath BID said the city centre’s stores, cafes and bars were more vulnerable despite being in the less harsh Tier 2 than many other cities, including neighbouring Bristol, as they face higher than average rates and rent bills.
Trade body UKHospitality has already warned that going into Tier 2 will result in 75% of hospitality businesses becoming unviable by next March.
The BID is backing a campaign calling on the government to throw a financial lifeline to the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors.
The campaign, launched to coincide with the end of the second national lockdown, also wants action to ensure England’s towns and cities have the ability to recover from tier restrictions and lockdowns.
The BID said, as a visitor destination for two centuries, Bath’s employment and business activity was uniquely based around the visitor economy with city centre businesses growing around its historic visitor attractions.
Bath’s annual footfall is estimated at 6m and in 2018 it was the 11th most visited city in the UK by international staying visitors, with a total of 348,000 spread throughout the year.
The BID said because of the city’s economic reliance on the hospitality trade, its businesses and the people employed in them were dependent on the proposed special support outlined in the Bounce Back Better Manifesto – which forms the centrepiece of the campaign – particularly sector specific grant support, help with employee costs, the business rates holiday extension and the extension of the VAT reduction scheme.
Bath BID agrees that sector-specific measures require sector-specific support and believes the manifesto outlines a range of packages which would provide a vital lifeline for hospitality, retail and leisure businesses alike.
The manifesto, drawn up by Croydon BID, follows intense and thorough talks with businesses, BIDs, local councils, destinations and industry bodies to provide options of support to help the UK economy ‘Bounce Back Better’.
Bath BID chief executive Allison Herbert, pictured, is keen to see the manifesto adopted.
She said: “Sector-specific support will be essential to help Bath find a way through the challenges of this pandemic. We urge the Chancellor to stand by his promise to do whatever it takes and make sure that the city does not see large numbers of closure and job losses.”
Bath BID director Ellie Leiper, who also owns The Grapes bar on Westgate Street, said the government appeared “woefully out of touch” with the costs of running a business.
“Costs far outweigh the £3,000 grant offered under the current scheme and more is needed to support businesses like ours to ensure the continued vibrancy of the hospitality sector in Bath,” she said.
“We are grateful for the furlough support we have received but grant funding will not even cover the costs we have for National Insurance and pension contributions, let alone rent, supplier costs and utilities.
“Without deeper and more targeted government support, I am concerned that businesses will end up closing their doors forever, hospitality will not be there to help the economy get back on its feet and we will lose the employment which the government is working so hard to protect.”
