By Chris Burn

Published 14th Jan 2023, 05:45 BST

The Yorkshire and Humber Leaders Board, made up of 22 council leaders from across the region plus mayors Tracy Brabin and Oliver Coppard, is aiming to have the new tourism body in operation from this April, with its work overseen by Barnsley Council.

But details of the precise scope of operations of the new destination management organisation (DMO) and even its name are yet to be determined.

The original Welcome to Yorkshire, which was a private sector company but reliant on millions in public funding largely through local councils, went into administration in March last year after local authority leaders said they would no longer fund it following a series of financial and reputational scandals.

The original Welcome to Yorkshire collapsed into administration last year after council leaders withdrew funding. They are now looking to set up a replacement organisation.

The Leaders’ Board attempted to buy the WtY name and assets from administrators but was outbid by private firm Silicon Dales, which ha subsequently largely concentrated on building up its yorkshire.com website rather than traditional tourism agency activities.

Carl Les, North Yorkshire County Council leader and a co-chair of the Leaders’ Board, as well as a former WtY board member, said council leaders had agreed to make “modest contributions” to set up the new DMO.

“A lot of this has been tainted by the experiences with the previous Welcome to Yorkshire and leaders are cautious about going forward with something on a regional scale. But I think we all agree there is a need for a regional DMO because the Yorkshire brand is extremely strong.

"Bearing in mind all councils are under significant pressure because of inflation on our existing budgets, there’s perhaps less appetite at the moment to put amounts of funding into a regional DMO. But we have agreed to put a small amount of funding in to get some sort of activity going.”

He said it is intended the new organisation would work with existing local tourism organisations such as Make It York to help promote the region more effectively.

The Government has recently granted £2.25m to North East England to run a pilot for restructured and simplified DMOs.

Coun Les said he believed the new organisation would avoid the problems that affected the old Welcome to Yorkshire. "This is a council-run operation which will be done in the glare of all the transparency that happens with council activities.”

'Modest' council-led tourism body to replace Welcome to Yorkshire will launch in April