Keith Beecham, Visit Jersey’s chief executive, said that although visitor growth was falling below the predicted level, the outlook from an economic standpoint remained positive.
‘What the numbers suggest is we’re behind where we need to be to meet the target of one million visitors in 2030,’ Mr Beecham said. ‘That is, growth has been below the trend line set out in our 2015 Jersey Destination Plan. But we’re broadly on track for achieving our visitor spend target for 2030.’
Mr Beecham said the original visitor target for this year was ‘around 770,000 people’.
He added: ‘We won’t be there, but on the spend side we’ll be very close – visitors are spending money in Jersey at a faster rate than the numbers of visitors are increasing.
‘That’s good because, given the choice, businesses, hotels and attractions will want the revenue to grow faster than the numbers.’
He said that although Visit Jersey did not yet have the complete visitor data for 2018, the information should be ready for release later this month.
The tourism marketing body has now published its updated Jersey Destination Plan, which outlines its aims leading up to 2030.
The plan shows that in 2017, 705,000 people visited Jersey, an increase of just 1% from the 701,000 who visited in 2014. However, the number of overnight holiday visits to Jersey increased from 338,000 in 2014, to 418,000 in 2017 – a jump of 24%.
And total visitor spend rose by 5%, from £232 million to £244 million over the same period.
‘In terms of the holiday market – which is the area we at Visit Jersey can most influence – we’ve seen some very strong growth,’ he confirmed.
Mr Beecham also revealed that Visit Jersey – which is a States-funded body created in 2015 to promote Jersey as a visitor destination – was anticipating receiving a grant of £4.9 million, £100,000 less than it was given by the States in 2018.
‘We understand the constraints the public sector is working in,’ he said. ‘There are lots of demands on public resources and £4.9 million will allow us to continue to market Jersey.
‘We’ve reduced our spend on market research [to make up for the £100,000 shortfall]. We think we can do that because in previous years we completed several market research reports which will still be relevant.’
He said that Visit Jersey would aim to publish its annual report in April or May, and added: ‘We expect [to be able to show] that for every £1 the Jersey taxpayer provided us last year, we returned £6 to the States through our direct activity in influencing visitors – in terms of the activities they did and the things they bought.’
