MANCHESTER Art Gallery is celebrating a record year in which it attracted more than half a million visitors for the first time. This tells us something about Manchester tourism in general - see the yellow box below.
Previously the gallery was closed on Mondays, it has been open seven days a week since summer 2012, with a late night opening until 9pm on Thursdays
From blockbuster exhibitions by art world superstars such as Grayson Perry and Jeremy Deller to arts and health and learning activities, the gallery's hugely varied programme attracted 514,852 visitors between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014.
This is almost 100,000 more than the 415,785 visitors in the corresponding period in 2012-13.
The figure smashed projections and with 8,531 visitors in the first few days of 2013/14 (up to Sun 6 April), Manchester Art Gallery looks set for another bumper year, with shows including the current exhibition from Joanna Vasconcelos: Time Machine and The Sensory War.
Visitors have also responded well to the gallery’s increased opening hours, which have been funded by the gallery's Development Trust.
Where previously the gallery was closed on Mondays, it has been open seven days a week since summer 2012, with a late night opening until 9pm on Thursdays.
Holman Hunt's Hireling Shepherd in Manchester Art Gallery
Visitors have attended educational programmes too. More than 58,000 people have been part of the learning sessions – 26,500 family members, 18,000 school pupils and 13,200 adult learners – delivered by around 500 volunteers.
Dr Maria Balshaw, Director of Manchester City Galleries and Whitworth Art Gallery, said: "Our vision to present internationally important art has not only brought economic benefit to the city, but is obviously meeting local residents' desire for higher quality programming. We have a fantastic range of exhibitions and events coming up this year too, so we hope to build on the great success of 2013/14."
Tourism On The Up
The official figures show approximately 1.1 million international visitors a year come to Greater Manchester. The region is the third most popular destination in the UK for overseas visitors to Britain. With many of those taking a trip to Manchester Art Gallery.
Now Central Library has triumphantly re-opened surely we must create weekend breaks around library visits, maybe even conjour up a library festival.
Meanwhile the city’s tourism industry generates £6.6 billion a year for the local economy and supports 84,000 full-time equivalent jobs.
It's all good stuff.
Confidential knows why tourism has grown so much since the reconstruction after the IRA bomb.
Spinningfield's heatwaveWe have better festivals, better hotels, better restaurants, better pubs and bars, two successful football teams not one (despite United's blip), better infrastructure, better art galleries, more museums, better and more frequent guided tours and whole new districts such as Spinningfields and MediaCityUK. The Christmas markets are now so big you can’t see Easter for them.
Not everything is rosy in the garden of course. Retail is a problem. In terms of variety and appeal this has flatlined, under pressure from infestations of out of town malls, general economic conditions and changes in consumer behaviour as the world falls in love with digital.
Aside from retail there is one other major deficiency hindering Manchester from reaching its true tourist potential.
ATTENTION TO DETAIL.
In capitals.
Manchester can be cavalier compared with other tourist locations about what may seem relatively minor, and low cost, aspects of tourist provision.
Our flower beds and central gardens, limited in scale as they are, are never maintained as well as those in traditional ‘tourist’ cities. This is especially a problem since we don't have a major central green space until the council and business see sense and really exploit Castlefield with a series of pocket parks.
After ten years (I know I've been in most of them) of costly debate, meetings, and reports, wayfinding has never been sorted. How does a tourist leaving Piccadilly Station easily find their way to the main central destinations without a map or good luck? Simple. They don't. They have to stumble about until they happen upon them.
The Visit Manchester staff at the information centre on Portland Street, and the city tour guides do a marvellous job in opening out the city for people, but a real boost was given in 2013 by a Business Improvement District (BID) initiative (see the BID article here).
The city centre 'hosts' that have been employed are excellent - with one caveat.
It’s a shame the hosts scheme covers such a limited geographical area – King Street, St Ann’s Square, the Arndale and Market Street. In other words the area in which the shops that pay for the scheme are located.
It would be better for everybody if they patrolled from Oxford Road Station to Victoria Station and from Piccadilly Station to Castlefield.
We are also particularly poor as a city about telling our story. There are scarcely any displays in key locations outside Castlefield explaining historical context and the city’s significance – indeed, Manchester’s approach on the street at key locations in communicating what has been achieved and what people can see is poor or inconsistent.
Tourism is a visceral foot-to-the-ground experience, pacing the city, learning as you go. Smart phones, the great hope of tourism authorities everywhere who want to cut costs, help, but do not replace the need for information boards, better ground-level information, leaflets, guidebooks and above all, people. One day we may live in a digital tourism nirvana but not yet.
Still, the picture is brighter than it's ever been for tourism, and speaking personally as a tour guide as well as Manchester Confidential editor, I've seen a huge increase in tourists to the city in recent years. Work for the thirty odd official guides in Manchester has never been more available.
But it's not just guides who've noticed this.
Ask the tourism professionals across many sectors and they will underline how much stronger the city region has become as a tourist destination over the last fifteen years.
So not only have many in the industry in Manchester never had it so good but, more importantly, neither have our visitors in terms of what they can see, do and experience in the city.
Manchester can be cavalier compared with other tourist locations about what may seem relatively minor, and low cost, aspects of tourist provision.
Perhaps the next step for the tourist authorities is to identify the things we are very good at even though they may not be obvious.
Phil Griffin on these pages has written about this. For example what about libraries?
Fox Courtyard - Chetham's Now Central Library has triumphantly re-opened surely we must create weekend breaks around library visits, maybe even conjure up a library festival.
We have the beautiful and unparalleled foursome of Chetham's, Portico, John Rylands and Central. Of course the libraries will have to be persuaded to open at weekends; for instance it's ridiculous that Central Library doesn't do so on Sundays.
But it would be grand to work on key global tourist markets and get high-spending cultural visitors poring over our priceless first editions, manuscripts and illuminated wonders.
That would only increase money coming into the economy and help build upon the sterling work of Manchester Art Gallery and others.
Manchester International Festival 2013
