A major campaign is running from June until August to promote Wirral as a tourist destination, to coincide with the borough being in the global spotlight for The Open at Hoylake.
The championship takes at Royal Liverpool Golf Course from 16 – 23 July and is expected to be the biggest ever held in England – 250,000 tickets sold and many millions more watching on TV across the world.
June and early July will see a digital online and radio campaign to target golfing audiences and locations in the run up to The Open, then aiming publicity towards the family and ‘staycation’ market later on in the summer.
There will be digital roadside screens on key routes heading towards Wirral across the north west, and poster sites on regional train stations including Manchester, Preston and Leeds and Lime Street station in Liverpool.
Along with targeted media articles, Wirral Council says the combination of formats will reach a range of audiences across the summer of 2023 to make sure people see, hear, and read about Wirral.
Chair of the Tourism, Communities, Culture and Leisure Committee, Cllr Helen Cameron, said: “With hundreds of thousands of people attending The Open in July, this is an obvious and unmissable opportunity to capitalise upon. Wirral will welcome many visitors from the UK, as well as those who have travelled a long way and a large number may well have never been here before.
“We will also have a significant media presence from across the world here for over a week. And it’s not just golf fans, but the widespread attention this Championship will focus on Wirral means we have exceptional chance to put Wirral in the national and international spotlight.”
In 2014 when Wirral last hosted The Open and Rory McIlroy won the iconic claret jug, the international media coverage of the event had resulted in a tourism promotion benefit of £52.2m, according to a report to the council’s cabinet following the event. There had been over 5,400 hours of television coverage of The Open across 106 television channels, with a worldwide reach of 505 million households.
Based on the research of a global sports marketing company, Repucon and Sheffield Hallam University’s Sports Research Centre commissioned by The R & A, golf’s governing body, it was calculated that The Open at Royal Liverpool Hoylake had delivered a total economic benefit of £76.3m across the Wirral area and to the wider economy of the north west. In addition, approximately 6,000 people had received passes to work at The Open.
The analysis also indicated that an estimated £19.1m had been spent by over 200,000 visitors, and Wirral businesses including restaurants, hotels and guest houses, pubs and shops had benefited during the week long championship.
