Third advisory board completes revamp for tourism strategy

A major overhaul of the marketing machine behind some of the region’s most popular tourist attractions and destinations has been undertaken during the last six months.

The third in a network of tourism advisory boards is being established to complete the coverage across North Yorkshire in a move aimed at providing a far more industry-led strategy.

Welcome to Yorkshire directors have admitted the previous system was far too regimented, and are now hoping to tailor marketing campaigns to specific themes to promote individual areas as well as the overall region.

A recruitment drive is under way to sign up members for the third tourism advisory board which will cover Ryedale and the North York Moors.

It will run alongside two other boards launched earlier this year to cover the coast as well as Harrogate and the Yorkshire Dales.

Welcome to Yorkshire’s North Yorkshire East area director, Janet Deacon, is helping launch the new board to run alongside the committee covering the coastal area.

Her colleague, David Shields, is a member of the Harrogate and Dales board under his remit of overseeing an area west of Sutton Bank.

Mrs Deacon said: “The problem with the previous structure was that people were forced into it, and the marketing strategies were trying to be all things to everybody.

“Rather than having a bureaucratic organisation where everyone was forced to work together to get funding, we are trying to tailor the strategy far more to the different aspects of the tourism industry.

“North Yorkshire is so diverse, but there are nonetheless aspects where there is some distinct crossover.

“Where it makes sense to join forces to promote North Yorkshire and the whole region, that is exactly what we will do. But we are also aiming to stage marketing campaigns to specific areas and themes.

“The new structure is being led by the actual tourism industry, because they are the people who are the experts at what they do.”

New marketing strategies include a promotion of the region’s produce, themed around fish and chips, ale and tearooms.

It will include a tourist trail of fish and chip restaurants, tearooms and pubs across North Yorkshire.

Another campaign, which has secured £15,000 in funding, will highlight an international pro-surfing championship event in Scarborough in October.

North Yorkshire boasts a wide and varied range of attractions, but the decision was taken last year to revamp the county’s marketing strategy.

The Yorkshire Post revealed in November that tourism business owners had claimed the previous regime was blighted by “squabbling and indecision”.

Welcome to Yorkshire’s chief executive, Gary Verity, stressed it was “imperative” to streamline the industry to make it more effective.

Tourism is worth £7bn each year to Yorkshire’s economy, and employs nearly 250,000 people in the region.

The new advisory boards are made up of about a dozen members mainly from a wide range of tourism sectors, including the hospitality trade, festival and events organisers and cultural leaders.

Representatives from local authorities are also working alongside Mrs Deacon and Mr Shields on the advisory boards, which will work closely with the hugely successful Visit York tourism partnership.

More information about the Ryedale and the North York Moors board is available by e-mailing [email protected] or calling 01653 600666 extension 326 by June 9.