Planning to be the UK's top tourist destination

Tourism agency Welcome to Yorkshire has unveiled ambitious plans to make Yorkshire the UK's top tourist destination. The organisation revealed its strategy recently in front of an audience of 1,500 people at its Y10 conference in Harrogate, the biggest tourism event in Yorkshire.

Welcome to Yorkshire was launched last year with funding from Yorkshire Forward of £30m over three years from 2009-2012. The package should result in a £300m increase in visitor spend in our region.

Why does this sort of thing matter?

Tourism is vitally important to the region’s economy:

• Over 250,000 people work in the sector
• The sector has grown by 50% over the last 10 years
• It contributes around 8.5% of the region’s total output.

What’s in the campaign?

Plans include: 

• Support for a production of The Railway Children at Waterloo Station in London, using real steam trains in the show. 
• An area of exhibition space at the entrance to Waterloo Station, designed to entice Londoners and its tourists to visit (from 4 July to 30 September).
• A new television series entitled The Dales—in the pipeline to be on TV in 2011.
• Sponsorship of one of the biggest shows on TV: Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
• The Welcome to Yorkshire’s Rhubarb Crumble and Custard Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. The show will also highlight beautiful gardens throughout the region which people can visit. 
• The Welcome to Yorkshire Golf Campaign, which promotes golf breaks in Yorkshire to national and international audiences.
• Welcome-to-Yorkshire-branded trains on routes between the region and Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria.
• Renaming the Scarborough Cricket Festival as the Welcome to Yorkshire Scarborough Cricket Festival. 
• A new Leeds sightseeing bus and boat, enabling visitors to explore more of the city by road and historic waterway
• Dragon’s-Den-style funding grants for new product development projects.