European Cities’ Heartbeat reveals resilience

European tourist sentiment on sanitary safety remained positive in autumn with resilience shining through on many fronts. That is the top line from a new study from European Cities Marketing (ECM) and TCI Research. The organisations partnered to monitor the Covid-19 city tourism rebound with their TRAVELSAT© Cities’ Heartbeat Dashboard, which enables cities across Europe to monitor the pace, the profile and the quality of visitation rebound in the region. Before the latest round of travel restrictions, visitation of iconic attractions had been stable in October compared to September, according to the Dashboard. In early autumn, more than 1 in 2 mobile devices captured still belonged to a tourist, 20% of those coming from more than 300km away. The specific visitor sentiment related to sanitary safety reached 60% of positivity since the beginning of autumn and increasing eight points versus September. “While many European destinations and markets are unfortunately closing/locking down again, our recent data prove that cities have developed some inherent resilience both in terms of attractiveness and ability to host and welcome their visitors in safe conditions. A well-balanced investment in promotion and destination experience management will continue to fuel travellers’ confidence as a regain of optimism is expected for 2021,” said Olivier Henry-Biabaud, CEO of TCI Research TRAVELSAT©. Petra Stušek, ECM President, added: “The latest data from the TCI Dashboard for November give us a positive overview of the fall situation in European cities in terms of e-reputation, visitors’ satisfaction and sanitary safety; all progressing in an encouraging way, showing the resilience capacity of European cities. Hopefully, the recent tightening of sanitary measures in different parts of Europe will not affect these sentiments. It is our role as DMOs to work locally on measures to improve confidence for both visitors and residents, promote our destinations as safe places to travel to and preserve our local visitor economies.” Check out ECM’s webinar on ‘Planning for Recovery’ held in October and featuring a presentation of the Cities’ Heartbeat Dashboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRGdSxWYiPs ECM promotes the interests of members from more than 110 major cities in 38 countries.