A new strategy to bring more visitors to the Scarborough Borough was backed by the Borough Council's Cabinet yesterday.
The plan is to encourage visitors to stay longer, explore more locations and to come back more frequently.
A year round schedule of festivals and events will be developed to encourage that.
The report presented to cabinet members yesterday highlighted the importance of tourism to the local economy with 10 million visits a year supporting almost half the jobs in the borough.
That's a fact not lost on cabinet member Janet Jefferson
The ten year strategy aims to encourage more people to visit the borough year round and to stay longer.
It will involve creating a year round programme of festivals and events.
Tourism Manager Janet Deacon says they want the borough to get back to pre-COVID tourism levels quickly.
The overall aim is to increase the value of tourism to the borough so that it has a positive impact on residents and businesses but doesn’t affect the environment or damage local communities.
The council says it is keen to build on existing traditional markets and at the same time look to attract additional aspirational, and affluent visitors, to the Yorkshire coast.
One of the key objectives of the strategy is to encourage tourists to stay longer and explore more of what the borough has to offer. This would be achieved by promoting its hidden gems, coastal and countryside villages and its beauty spots.
Another outcome is to develop more ‘off-peak’ visits through increased promotion of what the borough has to offer outside of the traditional summer season. One idea is more festivals and events, which could take place all year round.
The strategy proposes that more support be given to tourism and hospitality businesses in the borough to assist them in maximising their marketing potential.
The new destination plan will cover the period from now until 2030, which will incorporate Scarborough’s 400th anniversary in 2026.
An early target is to return the local visitor economy to pre-2020 levels by the end of 2022 and then look to increase the value by four per cent year-on-year.
Tourism Manager at the borough council, Janet Deacon, says the tourism market has changed and the borough needs to develop new experiences to attract visitors.
Janet says there are a raft of measures that can be taken to provide an improved visitor experience and help secure local employment opportunities.
In the average year, more than 10 million visits are made to the borough, contributing more than £600 million to the local economy.
The visitor economy strategy and destination plan has been updated in light of the coronavirus pandemic, which had a devastating effect on last year’s holiday season.
While the borough did benefit from an influx of visitors at the end of the initial coronavirus lockdown, the economy took a considerable hit. However, experts believe an appetite for staycations in the wake of Covid-19 will benefit the borough over the next year.
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