Tourism businesses in the Burnham-On-Sea area saw mixed fortunes during the half-term holiday with some saying flooding on the Somerset Levels has caused a downturn.
Some holiday parks in Brean have seen a 25% drop-off in trade and are blaming national media coverage of the floods for putting people off visiting, even though the Burnham area is ‘open for business’, as highlighted in a campaign here.
Louise Parkin at Burnham Pavilion told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “I had one Welsh family in over the weekend who told me how surprised they were that there is no flooding here. They said they’d expected to drive through flood water to reach us.”
“Their family back home in Wales had even warned them against coming for fear of risking their car by visiting Somerset in the floods.”
Louise added: “The flooding coverage has certainly not helped – there has been a marked drop-off in customers from further afield even though we’re not affected – and it was an average half term of trade for us overall. There were not as many people about as usual.”
In Brean, Beachside Holiday Park Owner Clive James says there is a perception that the whole of Somerset is underwater even though the village has experienced no flooding.
“We would normally expect about 20 caravans occupied over half-term and yet this year there were none at all,” he told Burnham-On-Sea.com.
“We’ve had to bring our prices down in order to attract visitors and that reduces our profitability. In turn, this means we may not be able to take on as many staff this year. Also, without the vistors, there are fewer customers at local tourist attractions, shops and local cafes so it effects many local people.”
He said some businesses that rely on tourism have seen a 25% drop in income over the half-term last week compared to last year.
But not all local tourism businesses have been hit and Steve Atkins, park manager at Burnham’s Home Farm Holiday Park, said: “We had a good half-term week with buoyant sales and lots of holiday home enquiries after visiting a caravan exhibition in Birmingham last week. The flooding hasn’t impacted us.”
Meanwhile, BIARS and the Chamber of Trade are among groups in Burnham who are promoting the area as being open for business despoite the flooding elsewhere in the county.
