Clouds on the horizon help boost holidays at home

First there was the impact of the ash from the eruption of the Icelandic volcano then long-running industrial action by British Airways cabin crew. When the Midlands based travel firm Sun4u collapsed, 1,200 of their customers were stranded abroad. This week, Kiss Flights become the latest travel company to fail, sparking uncertainty for an estimated 70,000 holidaymakers. In all, 13 travel firms have gone bust in the UK this year.

So has the threat of uncertainty over foreign travel worked to Yorkshire's advantage? In some places it has. "We've been full, nearly since the beginning of July, until early September." says Carolyn Van Outersterp, who along with her husband runs Jollydays, an upmarket camping enterprise near Stamford Bridge. "We get quite a few people that are not going abroad," she says. "Really they've had enough. We've had lots of airport nightmare stories, particularly families with young children."

A survey of its members by Welcome to Yorkshire, the regional tourism body, revealed 68 per cent of hotel rooms were taken in June, five per cent up on the same month last year. Self-catering accommodation bookings were 74 per cent, a rise of four per cent.

Not everywhere in the region is booming. On the North York Moors, the National Park reports a mixed picture. At the start of the holiday period, there was a jump in passengers using the Moorsbus service to see the Easter daffodils in Farndale, with 17,500 using it, the busiest year ever. Visitors to tourist information centres however are down.

Tourists are also an important source of income for some farmers. "It's very often the icing on the cake," says Rosemary Hyslop, the regional director for Farmstay UK, a members' co-operative with just over 100 farms in Yorkshire.

At her own cottages near Settle she says numbers have been up each month this year, apart from January and July, although for her membership as a whole cottage lets are level with last year. For members doing B&B, the picture is slightly better.

How vital to success is a bit of sunshine which, after all, is the reason people choose foreign destinations in the first place? Rosemary explains people are drawn to the area by events, or to explore specific attractions such as the Settle to Carlisle Railway, or to do the Coast to Coast walk.

"With cottages, on the whole people book further in advance, but for B&B the weather is quite a big part in it. If you suddenly get a decent stretch of weather they think, 'Ooh yes, we'll go'."