City of Culture delivers good PR but poor jobs count

An audit carried out for Derry City and Strabane District Council has concluded that only 300 to 400 new jobs were created during 2013, lagging well behind the 2,800 initially forecast in the old council’s ‘legacy plan’.

Despite the disappointing job creation figures the post-project evaluation concluded that UK City of Culture 2013 delivered a significant legacy by buoying the tourism sector and putting the city on the international map.

Notwithstanding the finding that ambitious tourism targets had not been met ‘largely as a result of the scaling back of the original cultural programme’, there was an impressive rise in hotel bed sales and occupancy rates.

Hotel room sales grew from 123,964 in 2012 to 172,259 in 2017 and hotel occupancy rates were up from 61.26 percent to 70.2 percent over the same period.

Oonagh McGillion, Director of Legacy at DC&SDC said the failure to meet the more ambitious job creation targets was due in large part to the economic recession, which “affected both private and public sector investment plans, which were key to many of the projected economic impacts”.

There were also “difficulties in accessing limited sources of public sector funding and private sector sponsorship for the programme”.

Nonetheless, UK City of Culture 2013 was a major success in branding. Derry received excellent exposure internationally through the Lonely Planet Guide, United Airlines, British Airways, LateRooms.com, The Irish Times and The Sydney Morning Herald, among others.