Average hospitality sales across the eight months showed substantial growth of 5.6%, with September the stand-out month with an 11.1% annual increase.
Promoting
Spend: ÂŁ379,313 - 52% of Total BID Project Budget
A thriving city centre is a place people want to visit and spend time in. We have carefully invested in promoting the BID area, creating activity and engagement to support the BID community. In five out of the eight months being reported Edinburgh retail sales saw annual growth. Although both September and November 2019 saw declines, these were equalled out with growth in October, December and January leaving the eight months reported as flat. Both the UK and Scotland followed a similar trend, averaging out into very slight annual declines of 0.8% and 1% respectively. Average hospitality sales across the eight months showed substantial growth of 5.6%, with September the stand-out month with an 11.1% annual increase. Over 90% of respondents to the Edinburgh Visitor Survey, conducted by STR, agreed that the shops in the BID area were of a higher quality than elsewhere in the city and 74%
believed the quality of eating and drinking on offer was better in the BID than the city overall.
George Street Festival We worked with Assembly Festival and the Edinburgh International Book Festival again in 2019 to animate George Street during August. This successful mixture of festival entertainment and extended on-street space for our restaurant and bar businesses helped increase dwell-time within the BID area, helped boost footfall in the surrounding area and helped increase hospitality sales by 8.1% on August 2018 – all despite the poor weather, again, during August 2019.
Film Fest in the City A firm favourite of businesses and residents, this annual free film bonanza was unfortunately cancelled due to Covid-19 and unable to be rescheduled during this operational year. Planning is already underway for an enhanced event in 2021. ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH Annual Review 2019-20 | 8
