Birmingham must try again for city of culture title, says hotelier
The manager of one of Birmingham’s major hotels has told Insider that the city must bid again to become the UK’s city of culture or it risks a drop in tourism and reputation.
Peter Farrow, general manager of the Thistle Hotel, said that Birmingham “absolutely” needs to bid next year following its failure this year when Londonderry took the title.
He said: “If we don’t bid again this year, it will look like we have no faith in Birmingham – people may think twice about coming to a city which didn’t even attempt to claim the title a second time around.
Birmingham faced criticism for a low-key city of culture bid and for failing to attract celebrity support. Liam Neeson supported the winning bid from Derry whilst Stephen Fry backed Norwich. When the winning bid was announced on BBC1’s The One Show, the celebrity mentioned in connection with the Birmingham bid was singer songwriter Joan Armatrading, whose biggest hit was in the 1970s.
Darren Patt, regional operations director of Thistle Central and the South added that Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture win “really worked well” for the city, and a similar title had the potential to do the same for Birmingham.
Farrow also said that the hotel trade had been hit “particularly hard” by the recession.
He added: “There may have been a shortage of hotels a few years ago, but there really is a surplus of beds now. We are definitely seeing an improvement, but it was very tough for a a year or so.”
The hotelier’s revelations come as Mark Bourne, venue manager at the IET Birmingham: Austin Court told Insider that it had lost out on about 30 per cent of its income following the ending of a major customer. Bourne said that a local government contact, thought to be Birmingham City Council, had ended its preferred supplier status “abruptly” earlier this year, following public sector funding cuts.
Bourne said: “The events and conferencing aspect of the industry is still quite slow – the public spending cuts have made it even more difficult. The social events are really taking off though, and that’s what we’re concentrating on more.
“Although the local government contract came to an end, we’ve been able to diversify the kinds of events that we offer, and have really seen an upturn in the number of social events that we’re catering for.”
