Yorkshire Tourism Booms After Grand Depart

The Tour De France's Grand Depart - which started in Leeds last summer - has helped increase the number of visitors to Yorkshire.

New figures show that it's gone up by almost a quarter with more people choosing to stay the night - the amount they're spending has also gone up by forty five per cent since last June.

Sir Gary Verity's from Welcome to Yorkshire - he was behind getting the race to come to our region. He says it's a really positive time.

“Symptomatic of the fact staycations across the UK are proving very popular this year – but on the back of the Grand Depart in Yorkshire last summer, to have an extra £380 million being spent by tourists across the county is fantastic.

“A sporting legacy – we see that with more people getting on their bikes across Yorkshire than anywhere else in the UK and a business legacy and obviously part of that is tourism and you can see that now that the figures that’ve been released form Visit England showing visitor spend is up 45% June on June, and visitors numbers up be almost a quarter is fantastic news.

“We think that number will increase further. We think that it’ll build over the years , many people will have seen Yorkshire on the television last year, from around the UK and from overseas, and will think about planning it into their visits and trips in the months and years ahead... But now with the annual bike race (the Tour De Yorkshire) tha**t’s simply re-enforcing that message.”

There’s big plans for the future too.

“There’s many big initiatives we’re working on at the moment - some of which are in the public domain, some of which we’re still keeping under wraps, but we’re very much more than just being about cycling. We love sport in every sense, we love the arts and culture and in 2016 we’ve some very exciting plans about the new Yorkshire Festival .“