• Visitor numbers are believed to be down by up to 20%
• Industry representatives say they believe the weather has played a part
• Visitors are also believed to be spending less

Visitor numbers in Devon and Cornwall are down by up to a fifth for the summer, figures suggest. www.bbc.co.uk

The South West Business Council said feedback from businesses along with traffic analysis suggested visitor numbers were down between 17 and 20% over summer 2023 to date.

Visit Devon also estimated visitor numbers were down 16 to 20% while Visit Cornwall estimated numbers were down by about 10%.

Some businesses have suggested tourists are also spending less.

Sally Everton, head of Visit Devon, said: “If we’d had a really cracking start weather-wise to the summer holiday we’d have done very well… but that didn’t really materialise for us.

“That said, we did have some good pick-up in the first two weeks of August… so that did give us a hand but it isn’t where we wanted to be in all honesty”.

Keith Richardson, a Torquay hotelier, said: “We’ve already got 20% less people but our food sales are less by 40%, so there’s a significant change there.

“This year has been pretty awful across the board.”