"Salisbury is world-renowned, but not for the reasons we would want it to be. I think what we need to do is almost rebrand. We are going through exactly that. We have employed consultants who are doing some work to get under the skin of Salisbury," Pauline Church, Wiltshire Council's cabinet member for economic development and Salisbury recovery, said at a public meeting at city hall, as quoted by the Guardian newspaper.
According to the reports, the number of tourists arriving to Salisbury has declined by almost 14 percent compared to the last year's figures, with the Salisbury Cathedral, the Salisbury Museum and the Salisbury Playhouse theater all reporting drops in numbers of visitors.
Church went on to say that Salisbury was "the most beautiful city," and that the consultants would try to change the public's new perception of it that followed the attack.
READ MORE: Zakharova Says New Salisbury Claims Aim to Distract Public From the Incident
According to her, all the locations that had been closed following the incident and the July Amesbury poisoning have been decontaminated and were now open for the public.
The Skripals were hospitalized in March, having been poisoned with what the UK prosecutors claimed was the A234 nerve agent. The UK government holds Russia responsible for the attack, while the latter has refuted the allegations as groundless and called on London to investigate the case together.
In July, Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowle were poisoned with supposedly the same substance in the neighboring city of Amesbury. While Dawn died in hospital, Rowle and the Skripals have recovered.