Tourism is big business in the UK, and I have seen some recent statistics which indicate that holidays in UK seaside resorts substantially increased in 2023 (Office of National Statistics). One can cite all sorts of reasons for this – difficulties travelling since Brexit, economic uncertainty – but one may well be that holidays abroad are becoming less attractive. I have heard horror stories about people unable to leave their Greek hotel because the sun was so hot, and fires threatening people’s accommodation.
Climate change can threaten people’s livelihoods in North Africa by turning fertile land into desert, but it may well affect the tourist industry in Greece by making conditions there unbearable. The climate here is not perfect of course, but it is something holiday resorts have to take account of.
British seaside resorts
Seaside resorts in Britain began to thrive in the late eighteenth century when the benefits of seabathing became appreciated. It was the middle classes who started frequenting the new resorts, and as a result fashionable towns such as Weymouth (George III and his brother came here) developed elegant regency architecture. When the railways came in the nineteenth century the resorts welcomed many more tourists and attractions catering for mass tourism. Blackpool benefitted from “Wakes Weeks” when the mills in Lancashire were closed for maintenance and the whole workforce decamped to the seaside. Smaller resorts such as Withernsea in East Yorkshire benefitted from day trips from nearby centres such as Hull.
With the development of the private car, people were able to choose where they went, and other inland holiday attractions benefitted more. Cheap package holidays abroad led to many forsaking the traditional seaside holiday and going after the sun in Spain and France. Coastal resorts sought other markets, such as conferences, although inland cities have now competed for this trade by building conference centres.
In the last few years there has been a “moral panic” about the future of many coastal holiday towns. They had become run down, and empty accommodation was being used for asylum seekers or the homeless. Many have reinvented themselves, by building new attractions for people if the weather is not attractive. Margate has built a new art gallery and revamped “Dreamland”, Morecambe is in the process of building a northern version of the “Eden Project” focussing on marine life. Scarborough now has a sealife centre. Many resorts have attractive residential areas of course, and if they are near a major centre as Weston-Super-Mare is near Bristol, they become attractive commuter areas.
But there still remains a problem that many seaside towns have a lower standard of living than other parts of the country and need some “levelling up”. I can only speak from my own experience but two seaside towns I have visited in the last two years have really struck me that they are going about things in the right way.
Nice and Weston-Super-Mare
One was in France, the other in this country. I visited Nice last summer on the way to walk in Provence. Nice was once the playground of the rich and famous, particularly the English. The seafront is known as “Promenade des Anglais”. But in 2016 it was the scene of a horrific massacre where a terrorist drove a truck into a crown celebrating Bastille Day, killing 66 people and injuring 434. As a result, tourism collapsed. The French government did not mess about. The town received considerable aid, and in two years built an urban tram system which enables visitors to get about easily. (Such projects seem to take much longer in this country). Now Nice is thriving, and seems to have its “mojo” back
I visited Weston this year, and the weather was kind. The town has some elegant architecture dating from the early nineteenth century, and much of it now seems to be in the process of renovation. What impressed me most, however, was the pier.
The original opened in 1904, and has twice been destroyed by fire, in 1930 and 2008. A local couple, Kerry and Michelle Michael purchased it and revamped it. Now it is an excellent entertainment centre, including an opulent theatre and a wedding venue. We actually saw wedding guests arriving when we were there. It even has a go-kart track and a climbing wall. What impressed me most is that it had many attractions aimed at young people. The amusement arcade was not the seedy sort of place you often see, with electronic gambling machines, but old-fashioned games which you could access for 2p a go, the sort of things I remember from my childhood, and which children could play on without losing a considerable amount of money.
The pier was certainly popular, providing entertainment for all ages in a wholesome environment. Weston seems so enthusiastic about piers they are even renovating another one, Birnbeck Pier, which is now derelict, but the council has managed to get some levelling up funds to put it right again.
Weston has advantages. It is near Bristol, and many people live there to commute into Bristol. But the example of building a wholesome attraction which appeals to all the family seems to be the answer to making our seaside resorts attractive again, despite our climate, as the lure of foreign holidays palls because of climate change. The British seaside holiday is not dead yet.
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