New Tour de Yorkshire organiser wants race to be ‘as big as it was before’

Robin Scott's company Silicon Dales bought all of the tourism agency’s assets, including the rights to run the race and the website Yorkshire.com, at auction last year after it went into administration.

Mr Scott, who recently relaunched Welcome to Yorkshire, said he is in talks with cycling’s world governing body Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and British Cycling about bringing the Tour de Yorkshire back.

“We're looking to make sure we've got enough funded support for the event to be as big as it was before, without having to go to local councils and ask them to dip into their pocket,” he said.

“Before we start making announcements or putting firm dates into the calendar, we want to get everything in place to have a successful event.

“But the target has always been 2024, for 10-year anniversary of the Grand Départ in Yorkshire.”

The 2022 Tour de Yorkshire was cancelled, after the 2020 and 2021 races were called off, as co-organisers Amaury Sport Organisation and Welcome to Yorkshire said it “would be unviable” due to “the impact of the Covid-19, combined with escalating financial challenges”.

The elite cycling race struggled to attract sponsorship for several years and Welcome to Yorkshire said it had become “a financial drain”.

The tourism agency called on nine councils in Yorkshire to each provide £200,000 to support the race in 2021, but three refused.

Before Mr Scott took over, Welcome to Yorkshire was a private company that was reliant on millions of pounds of council funding.

The organisation went into administration last year when the Yorkshire Leaders Board, which comprises various council leaders, decided to stop funding it after an independent review.

It was originally led by Sir Gary Verity, who received a knighthood for bringing the Tour de France to Yorkshire in 2014, but he left the organisation on health grounds in 2019, amid allegations about his expense spending and bullying.

Mr Scott said the new-look Welcome to Yorkshire has ambitious plans to attract people from all over the world to the region.

“We initially considered a rebranding exercise, but it’s relatively expensive and not entirely justified,” said Mr Scott. “With the name recognition of Welcome to Yorkshire and what they have achieved in the past, the positives outweighed the negatives.”

The tourism agency recently teamed up with HotelPlanner to launch a new online booking service that allows visitors to find accommodation.

Mr Scott said he is now looking to create a “one stop location” where people can book trips for large groups travelling for school trips, sports matches, conferences and other events.

“We'll do all the heavy lifting,” he said. “If some has a school trip or a work event and they're looking to book five days away in York or three days in Doncaster, they could do all of it through one form or through one telephone call.”

“We’re encouraging international travel into Yorkshire.”

It comes amid growing concerns about the tourism trade in the UK.

Visit Britain predicts 35.1m trips will be made to the country this year, but said soaring inflation in countries around the world is creating “a lot of uncertainty” as it is “putting pressure on travellers’ spending power”.

Earlier this month, tourism leaders warned French and German tourists are beginning to avoid the UK, because of post-Brexit restrictions on travelling with identity cards.

And last year, Tourism Alliance found there had been an 83 per cent drop in schoolchildren and students visiting the UK, leading to a loss of £875m and 14,500 jobs.