Visitor numbers down in Cornwall and Devon

Beaches were quiet in Torbay on Tuesday

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

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 were also spending less.

Devon hotelier Keith Richardson said it had been a bad season

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."