Power Maxed MotoFest Coventry gives £10m turbo boost to local economy
Power Maxed MotoFest Coventry is providing an estimated £10m boost to the city’s economy according to research conducted to gauge the economic impact of the festival.
Through data crunching undertaken with Coventry Business Improvement District (BID), sponsors and exhibitors, the Power Maxed MotoFest Coventry team has calculated the overall contribution the festival makes to the local economy.
Based on average spend, business uplift, visitor footfall and hotel occupancy rates, the number crunching has shown the event provides a £10m injection to city profits – only five years after Power Maxed MotoFest Coventry first took to the city’s roads.
The numbers revealed a 35% uplift in spend to city centre businesses during the two days of the Power Maxed MotoFest Coventry festival in June.
For footfall into the city during Power Maxed MotoFest Coventry, visitor numbers received a 25% boost with just over 136,000 people recorded in the city on both days of the festival – the most visitors into Coventry recorded at any time during 2018.
In a hat-trick of high-octane highlights, hotel room occupancy rates for the Power Maxed MotoFest Coventry festival were at a staggering 98% – which equates to 4,655 of the 4,706 hotel rooms available in the city being occupied that weekend.
James Noble, Power Maxed MotoFest Coventry Festival Director, said: “It’s great to know we are providing a £10m boost to the city by filling the tills, hotel rooms and the city centre itself during the festival weekend.
“Working with our partners, we have sought to calculate the impact of the event based on a range of data available to us. Overall we think it’s quite a conservative estimate as we don’t have a complete picture for some areas such as footfall figures.
“For instance there are no footfall cameras in Friargate and Warwick Row but we do know that this is a key event location that attracts large numbers of visitors. So when you factor in missing data from those locations, the 136,000 estimate is probably closer to around 150,000 – which puts us close to Goodwood Festival of Speed visitor numbers.
“The hotel occupancy room rate figures are almost unprecedented for the city and well above the 60 – 65% room occupancy rate normally seen across an average weekend in the city.
“It motivates us to continue developing and growing Power Maxed MotoFest Coventry and reinforcing its status as the largest urban motorsports festival in the UK.”
Adam Weaver, Managing Director of Automotive Brands, parent company of Power Maxed, said: “It’s just brilliant news to hear how much the event has both positively impacted on the economy in our local major city and brought awareness of the cars we love to the masses at the same time.
“We have been involved for a few years now, each year increasing our involvement and are
Incredibly proud to be involved. We just can’t wait to help make the event even better in 2019”
Trish Willets, Coventry BID Director Trish Willetts said: “Year after year MotoFest Coventry proves an excellent event for the city bringing in thousands of visitors.
“Many of our businesses had a fantastic weekend at this year’s event, it was extremely successful for them and these figures show that.
“MotoFest puts Coventry on the map and Coventry BID looks forward to continuing our successful partnership with the team and we cannot wait to see what they come up with next year.”
For businesses in the city centre, MotoFest Coventry offers the opportunity for a significant boost in profits with many of the pubs, restaurants and retail outlets reporting a bumper festival weekend.
Richard Easter, from LE Projects Ltd, which operates The Litten Tree and The Yard, said: “Due to the very close proximity of my business to some of the attractions in the event I must admit I did have some early reservations surrounding potential disruption.
“These quickly proved to be unfounded with both The Yard and The Litten Tree benefiting from a huge increase in footfall throughout the weekend, resulting in an overall uplift in turnover of around 50 per cent.
“The MotoFest weekend brought a great buzz to the city and I look forward to next year.”
Louise Wall, Group Commercial Director at the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, said: “The positive impact of this event on the regional economy is fantastic to see, with a range of businesses benefitting from its growth in such a short space of time since MotoFest was first held in the city.
“With UK City of Culture 2021 on the horizon, the economic benefits of holding major events in the city is clear for all to see.”
This year’s festival was the fifth year anniversary event for Power Maxed MotoFest Coventry and was marked by hosting the first competitive motorsports held on a city centre circuit in almost 30 years.
Power Maxed MotoFest Coventry is a two-day festival dedicated to the city’s motoring heritage, taking place in the first weekend of June each year.
It features a range of automotive activities taking place from pop-up and demonstration runs to static displays and fringe events with Power Maxed MotoFest Coventry, now the largest free urban motorsport festival in the UK.
