Cheltenham's managing director, Edward Gillespie, also said that despite corporate sales being hit hard, catering spend was up 14 per cent and the overall crowd increased five per cent.
“Increased profits means that we can invest in better facilities and in the prize money, to make sure that we maintain the quality of the racing,” said Gillespie. “As the Festival has changed and developed in recent years, we have developed a different audience.”
Cheltenham has submitted a planning application to construct new buildings to replace the portable structures in the Guinness Village area, currently used by 8,000 Tattersalls racegoers and additional hospitality guests.
“The number of paying customers who attend all four days is actually much smaller than you might think,” adds Gillespie. “Our database tells us that most people are coming for one or perhaps two days. We found by accidental experiment two years ago that our customers don't want more than seven races a day.
“There was plenty of queueing yesterday, and it's still my ambition to do something about that, but I think people can tolerate it on one day out of four. The first three days have settled nicely at around 50,000 each day and that seems to work like a dream.”
Imperial Commander's thrilling 7-1 victory in the Gold Cup has brought into question whether the proposed move of the Festival climax to a Saturday, mooted for 2012, would be beneficial.
