£1m PR campaign to drive tourists to flood-hot north gets underway

The Love the North campaign will see posters of iconic Yorkshire tourist sites like The Shambles in York and Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Wakefield displayed on the London Underground, as well as radio, digital, social media and national press advertising, after 60 per cent of tourism business in flood hit areas said business was damaged after the Boxing Day floods.

The funding was announced by Prime Minister David Cameron in January, days after Welcome to Yorkshire chief Sir Gary Verity said footfall at key tourist sites had “dropped dramatically” in the wake of the floods - and said the public were under a misconception that large parts of the region remained “underwater”.

The marketing campaign has been launched by VisitEngland ahead of the February half term and Easter school holidays to encourage British families to visit Yorkshire, Northumberland, York, Cumbria and Lancashire, and coincides with a range of special offers, such as 30 per cent off selected advance bookings on Virgin Trains, and hotels offering free nights.

The chief executive of VisitEngland and VisitBritain, Sally Balcombe, said the campaign meant increased exposure at a time when affected regions in the North needed it most.

She said: “The message is clear; there are plenty of wonderful places to visit on our own doorstop. We want to emphasise that the North is very much open and welcoming visitors. Tourism is an essential part of local economies and this marketing campaign will give these areas a much-needed boost.”

In the weeks after the floods, which affected vast swathes of York, Calderdale, Leeds and North Yorkshire, some hoteliers reported that 50 per cent of bookings had been cancelled, with those in areas not affected by flooding also hit.

Welcome to Yorkshire has been calling on people to support businesses both directly and indirectly affected by the floods, and its social media campaign #YorkshireWelcome has reached a potential 8.9m Twitter users.

Sir Gary said the new marketing campaign was “a great opportunity” to reach even larger audiences and help spread the message that Yorkshire is open for business.

He added: “The floods have had a huge impact on tourism businesses in Yorkshire, and affected footfall across the whole of the county.”

Last month, Kate McMullen, head of marketing at Make It York, said businesses in the city has a “very difficult start to the year” and that a new publicity drive was more important than ever.

Today the tourism organisation has released a new detailed analysis of York’s annual tourism figures, after earlier revealing that visitor spend reached a record-breaking £608m last year, up 6 per cent on 2014.

The number of jobs supported by tourism also rose 6 per cent, from 19,000 to 20,300; visitor numbers hit 6.8m, while the average spend by day visitors increased from £35.90 to £44.86.

Make It York said its research revealed that 99 per cent of visitors would recommend York to friends and family; 60 per cent of visitors said their main reason for coming to York was to enjoy the ambience of the city and more visitors than ever before – over half a million - stated shopping as a main driver for their visit - 10 per cent of leisure visitors.

The results are partly based on responses to face to face visitor surveys - which next year could be adapted to account for the growing numbers of visitors from oversees, and in particular China. Last year 8 per cent of visitors from oversees were Chinese - the fourth highest nationality, up from 10th last year.

In total 246,000, or four per cent, of all leisure visitors were from oversees, spending £49m - up £1m in the previous year.

Ms McMullen said the results demonstrated its overseas marketing campaigns were “paying dividends.”

“We are seeing growth in the proportions of Chinese, German and French visitors specifically,” she added.

York tourism in numbers

Thirty years ago, they were 2.1m visitors to York, spending £55m - now 6.8m visitors are spending a record £608m a year in the city. Make It York’s research showed:

Total conference and event spend equalled £132m (or £141 per business visitor); with leisure visitor at £476m (or £82 per leisure visitor).

Food and drink is the number one area of spend, followed closely by shopping; leisure visitors spent £135m and £130m respectively, up from £120m and £107m in 2013.

The top five nationalities visiting York were: Americans (18 per cent of all overseas visitors), Germans (13 per cent - up from 5 per cent in 2013, and moving two places up the rankings), French (9 per cent - up from 7 per cent), Chinese (leaping from tenth place just two years previously) and in fifth place Australians (7 per cent - down from 16 per cent).

Of York’s visitors, 22 per cent are staying overnight and 78 per cent are day visitors. More than a quarter of overseas visitors were in York for one day and 72 per cent staying at least one night.