Residents across Europe have started to protest about the number of tourists coming to their cities and making normal life impossible for locals. Liverpool is nowhere near that level of visitor saturation yet but we want to explore now how we can initiate a relationship with tourist professionals in the city so that we can develop and deliver a different strategy that means we can both benefit from the employment the visitor economy brings as well as add value to each visitor to the city who wants to experience Liverpool first hand.

Our 2021 Seminar Series took place across three evenings in October/November, at the LMA in the Met Quarter, and the LJMU Student Life Building on Copperas Hill. Attendees were able to join in-person as well as remotely, from their own homes, as we live-streamed all the events, and took questions from both in-person and remote attendees during the Q&A sessions. We were honoured to be joined by a number of fascinating speakers and local panellists during all three events, including experts from Porto and Copenhagen providing international inspiration in the second and third seminars.

Seminar 1: Liverpool

Liverpool was the focus for our first seminar and we had various local personalities relating how they would host a visitor to the city region over a 48hr period, including: Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Ngunan Adamu, Jay Hynd, Jubeda Khatun, and Natalie Haywood.

Seminar 2: Porto

Porto was the city choice of our second seminar and our speakers from the Camara Municipal do Porto gave us an insight into how the city developed and manages its tourism policy. The local panel contained Cllr Harry Doyle, Cabinet Member for Culture and Visitor Economy, Laura Pye, Director National Museums Liverpool, and Dr Takamitsu Jimura, Senior Lecturer in Tourism at Liverpool John Moores University.

Seminar 3: Copenhagen

Copenhagen was the choice for our final seminar and the speaker was Signe Jungersted, CEO and Founding Partner of Group Nao, responsible for Copenhagen’s internationally acclaimed citizen-focussed tourism strategy. Local panellists included Mayor Joanne Anderson, Claire McColgan, Director Culture Liverpool, and Dr Hazel Andrews, Reader in Tourism Culture & Society at Liverpool John Moores University.