
Research compiled by Tourism South East shows that more holidaymakers are coming to the Isle of Wight and the amount they spend has increased.
Tourism visits to the Isle of Wight last year rose by 5% compared to 2017, whilst 2018 saw an increase in the total visitor spend over the year too – up by 9% to £303 million – which means an average spend per head/per trip of £127.92.
Although short breaks fell by 2% across the year, holidaymakers spending 5 nights or more saw a significant rise of 19% in 2018.
Will Myles, Managing Director of Visit Isle of Wight said:
“It was definitely a year where all the seasons came in to play! It was heavy snow when I first started my job in March this year, there’s been rain through Easter and we saw at the end of August lots of heavy rain, glorious temperatures for much of the summer, it’s been amazing”.
Visit Isle of Wight’s remit to increase visitors to the Island in the ‘shoulder’ months has shown an increase of 9.2% compared to the previous year.
Will continued:
“We’ve seen visitor figures increase through the shoulder seasons, certainly in Quarter 1 which was up by 0.2% and in Quarter 4, October, November and December which was up by 9%. These figures are demonstrating that our goal to increase visitors here throughout the year is continuing to succeed.
“This can only happen with the unceasing support of tourism businesses through the Wight BID, through voluntary contributors and obviously through our strategic business partners as well. It’s crucial that we continue to work in this way and to keep the Island in the spotlight, to make sure it is the destination of choice”.
Will also paid tribute to the small team at Visit Isle of Wight for making the most of the budget available to them:
“We’ve got a small team here at Visit Isle of Wight. They make it possible! We don’t have as much marketing spend as some of the other regions. It’s great that our team work together, continuing to get first time visitors here, changing them into regular visitors who will come back time and time again and hopefully, we’ll get more people coming in 2019 with our ‘Discover the Isle of Wight for… ‘ campaign.
“Looking at the national picture, the Visit England statistics available at the moment show that the Isle of Wight is doing really well in it’s competitive set”.