Coronavirus: Tourism leaders assess the impact on York

Tourism leaders haven’t any hard data yet on the impact of the coronavirus on York visitor numbers.

But they are working with businesses to manage any potential impact, they said today.

Earlier this week we published a call from one businessman for residents to support local traders as ‘the city has never been so quiet’.

And last night the Liberal Democrat national spring conference due to take place over the next three days was cancelled.

Make It York, the body which includes tourism organisation Visit York, “are closely monitoring the coronavirus situation as it evolves” it told YorkMix today.

Managing potential impact

Tourism is worth £765 million to York, supporting more than 24,000 jobs in the city.

A spokesperson for Make It York said it was “working with the City of York Council, Visit Britain and other key partners to manage the potential impact for businesses across all sectors as effectively as possible.

“We continue to work with these partners to provide regular updates and guidance for businesses across the city.”

They added:

• In relation to York’s tourism industry it is too early to quantify the impact both with domestic and international visitors – however we are working with our members to collate data and feedback from them in order for us to understand this fully and pass this intelligence onto the local, regional and national levels to ensure tourism concerns continue to feed into Government.

There is a Coronavirus Update page on the Make It York website.

Make It York welcomed the measures announced in the Budget to ameliorate the effects on businesses of the coronavirus outbreak.

“Our focus now will be to work with City of York Council and other key partners to ensure York businesses across all sectors are aware of how they can access the support available to them and provide guidance in this area,” the spokesperson said.