What kind of tourism do we what for York in a post-pandemic world?
That was the theme of a key conference held in the city – and some fascinating answers were put forward.
Make It York’s managing director, Sarah Loftus, opened the virtual Visit York Tourism Conference by saying: “We must think big, be ambitious and build on the strength York has achieved to date.
“We have the ability to build something very special as, after all we have been voted the best City in the UK.”
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Make it York commissioned Group NAO to elaborate on how York’s visitor economy could ‘build back better’ post pandemic.
Peter Rømer Hansen of NAO said there were five key messages that came from their discussions with key stakeholders in York: “We need a grand plan for urban development and the role of tourism connecting the dots of a thriving city.
“Let’s maintain a strong connection with the locals who have rediscovered the city centre during Covid.
“We need leadership to become a sustainable destination, all in on culture! – and not just heritage – is a broadly shared aspiration and finally, we have a lot of things going, perhaps also a bit of complacency.”
You can read their full report here.
Record-breaking Christmas
Clare Frisby then chaired the Talking Heads panel, with Castle Howard’s Abbi Ollive, York BID’s Andrew Lowson, Galtres Lodge’s Rebecca Hill and LNER’s Kate McFerran.
All panellists said they were optimistic for York’s future. Abbi Ollive said that Castle Howard has “just come out of the back of a record-breaking Christmas… bigger and better than 2019” and that by “pre-ticketing some of our big events and phasing the entry, the visitor experience goes up”.
Andrew Lowson gave some positive stats from York’s footfall data: “If you look at this December just gone and compare it with December 2019, before the pandemic, York was only 5% down in terms of its footfall and that was compared to the UK average of –22% down”.
Andrew also addressed the “myth that local people don’t use York city centre”, as data shows that 30% of those who used the city centre in December 2021 were residents (residing inside the outer ring-road) and last summer, in the height of the tourism season between July and September, 26% of spend came from local people.
York has recovered well from the loss of international travellers, said Galtres Lodge’s Rebecca Hill: “What we’ve lost has been replaced with other markets – residents, locals, a bit further afield staycationers in the hotels.
“Aside from a few (businesses) who have said yes international is a really big draw for us, the majority have said yes whilst there has been a decline from that market it has been replaced, sometimes over and above, by other markets.”
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Make It York’s Chair, Greg Dyke, closed the conference by recognising how “devastating” the pandemic was initially for the tourism industry and well done to York’s businesses for surviving it.
He noted “how increasingly important sustainability is going to be to the tourism industry.
“If we want the tourists of the future, we will have to demonstrate that York is a green city and the plan to make York and North Yorkshire carbon neutral as soon as possible, I think is important to all our businesses”.
All slides and presentations from VYCON22 can be found here.