Liverpool’s hospitality industry on the path of recovery as party bookings ‘back to normal’

With the Grand National just around the corner and a special long weekend for the Queens Platinum Jubilee to look forward to, consumers will undoubtedly be heading into the city centre to celebrate.

After a rocky couple of years for the hospitality sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, are things finally starting to look up?

Kier Smith, business development manager for Tres and iStay, who deal with luxury party apartments, is certainly optimistic as bookings are starting to return to normal.

She said: “What we’re seeing in the apartment side of things is more confidence from people to book in advance, so we’re getting people putting deposits down on stays for next year even.

“From the business side, what this means for us, is we can plan; we can plan events, we can plan offers rather than not knowing what’s coming next. So it feels like pre-pandemic now.

“It’s back to normal.”

Liverpool’s Purple Flag status again

As well as the easing of coronavirus restrictions, there's been another boost to the city's hospitality sector.

Last month Liverpool secured Purple Flag status again – taking its reign into a twelfth successive year.

Purple Flag is a town and city centre award – similar to the Blue Flag for beaches or Green Flag for parks – which aims to raise the standard and broaden the appeal of town and city centres in the evening and nighttime.

Midweek lull

There is one area that is still lacking in the city centre though, and that's the midweek trade. However, Kier says that she's confident that that too will improve.

"The conferences are coming back this year for the ACC and the Convention Centre, so from the next few months, we should see hopefully see a rise in that with people getting back to the office and getting back to normality."