York Guides

Rise cheers tourism chiefs

JULIE HEMMINGS
New figures just released for 2004 show the visitor number – 3.95m – was the highest for five years, although overall spending has fallen slightly over the same period.

York's tourism industry suffered a series of setbacks in recent years, including the autumn 2000 floods, the foot-and-mouth crisis and the terrrorism attacks of September 11, 2001 in the US.
However, hotel occupancy rates for 2004 are the best since 1999 and there has been a marked recovery in the number of visitors from overseas, making up 24.4 per cent of all of York's visitors compared to 19 per cent in 2002-3 and 22.7 per cent in 2003-4.
The increase in the number of visitors from the Far East is particularly encouraging – of all overseas visits, the Far East now accounts for 10.8 per cent, compared to just 1.5 per cent in 2002-3 – and York hopes soon to benefit from new business from China.
The Chinese government relaxed travel controls at the beginning of the year to make it easier for its citizens to obtain visas for holidays in Britain, and in March a delegation of Chinese tour operators visited York and toured some of its attractions.
The new figures come from York's annual survey of 1,000 visitors to the city.
Other key findings included an increase in the use of the www.visityork.org website for bookings and an increase in the average length of stay from 2.99 to 3.05 days over the same period.
Most people questioned (89 per cent) said they visited York for leisure, and while only eight per cent mentioned shopping as a key reason for visiting, half had done some shopping by
the time they were interviewed.
York continues to be popular for repeat visits – more than three-quarters of visitors had been at least once before and more than half said they would definitely visit again.
The city also acts a gateway to Yorkshire, with more than 1.3m of the total of 3.95m visitors in 2004 intending to visit other parts of the region during their stay.
This year has got off to a slow start, which tourism chiefs put down to a number of factors including the slowdown in consumer spending which is a national trend affecting the tourism and retail industries.
York Tourism Bureau chief executive Gillian Cruddas said the survey was a useful tool in providing information to assist in the promotion of the city.
"Whilst 2004 was a relatively good year the beginning of this year has shown a slight downturn," she said.
"It's not possible to identify one particular reason for the slow start to the season but it is likely that the strong pound; competition from low-cost airlines for short breaks abroad; poor weather and a slowdown in consumer spending are all influencing factors.
"We are confident that with the excellent worldwide publicity York received as a result of Royal Ascot at York the second half of the year will be better."
The bureau estimates that Royal Ascot attracted national and international publicity for the city which would have cost in the region of £1m in terms of equivalent advertising.
Mrs Cruddas said conference and group bookings for the autumn were encouraging and could not overstate the long-term benefits from the Royal Ascot publicity.
"Ninety-nine per cent of the 230,000 visitors there, when questioned, said they would definitely come back to visit York," she said.