The Visitor Economy for the Liverpool City Region was growing at an enormous rate and was providing us with a whole range of new jobs as well as swelling our streets and hotels with large numbers of visitors prior to COVID-19. Though we expect that to be seriously dented by the COVID-19 pandemic everyone expects the flow of visitors to pick up once the crisis has lifted.

Engage is taking the theme of tourism and the relationship that residents of the city centre and waterfront have with the tourists for our next seminar series starting in October 2021.  As part of the build-up to the seminars we have joined with Dr Hazel Andrews, Reader in Tourism, Culture & Society in the School of Doctoral Management Studies at Liverpool John Moores University to bring you some materials that you might enjoy reading so that we are better informed about the issues we will be exploring during the seminars.

Here are some links that we hope you will find helpful when thinking about global organisations and tourism:

• UN World Tourism Organisation
• World Travel and Tourism Council
• World Tourism Cities Federation

Here are some links that work to support the Visitor Economy professionals:

• The Tourism Society
• Tourism Alliance

Here are some links exploring equitable and sustainable tourism:

• Tourism Concern
• Equations: Equitable Tourism Options
• Responsible Tourism Partnership

Here are a couple of articles by Dr Andrews about tourism:

• The Conversation 07.10.16 Brits Abroad: Stereotype or Media Hype
• UK in a Changing Europe 16.08.19 With Brexit uncertainty heating up, is the tourism industry cooling down?
• Tourism and COVID-19: Intimacy transformed or intimacy interrupted 01.06.20
• Watching Our Borders: Tourism, Brexit and Covid-19

Engage is regularly publishing articles about tourism in preparation for the seminar series and they can all be found on this webpage HERE and separately published by Engage below:

• Liverpool tours – have you been on one? 22.11.19
• Overtourism is worrying residents across Europe 26.01.20
• Starting the tourism conversation 05.03 20
• Porto – tourism destination like us 18.03.20

UPDATE POST-COVID TOURISM REALITY:

Engage has reported on the tourism debate extensively before the pandemic broke and here is an article that shows how cities across Europe that are major visitor destinations are re-thinking their offer as tourism has come to an almost full-stop. The Guardian: How coronavirus is reshaping Europe’s tourism hotspots 20.07.20