Tourism generates over £1 billion for County Durham
Tourism contributed more than £1 billion to County Durham’s economy for the second year running after more than 20 million people visited the region.
According to the latest STEAM figures – calculating the volume and value of the visitor economy – County Durham’s expenditure rose by 18.8 per cent in 2023 to £1.23 billion, with more than 20.15 million people visiting last year, an increase of 12.5 per cent.
Employment in the tourism and hospitality sector also increased by 12.4 per cent meaning more than 13,000 people are full-time employed in that sector and a further 2,619 employed through the supply chain.
A high proportion of our visitors are coming from within the region. Around 92 per cent (18.54m) of people who visited the region in 2023 did so for the day, with just 1.61m staying overnight.
However, County Durham and the wider North East have a low percentage of international visitors. Michelle Gorman, managing director of Visit County Durham, said it is “due to low recognition of the product offer and strong international demand for London and destinations that are easily accessible through transport gateways – primarily in the South East”.
She added: “We lag behind the other regions, but this presents an opportunity for the North East to raise awareness of our offer and grow both domestic and international tourism in a sustainable way.”
The North East recorded 459,000 international visits in 2023 and a £360 million spend from those tourists, by far the lowest in the country – compared to 3.4 million visits to the North West and 1.1 million to Yorkshire and the Humber, according to Visit Britain. Last year, Durham County Council leader Amanda Hopgood told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the North East lacks the national or international profile it should have and needs to “go to the right audiences”.
The Liberal Democrat councillor, who leads on tourism issues in the new North East Combined Authority, said: “We already attract 69 million tourists to the region a year, but we are bottom of the pile. The sector employs 63,000 people now, so you can only imagine what it can scale up to.
“We are never going to get people here coming for a sunshine holiday. As beautiful as our beaches are, you are never going to get people coming to sit in 35C sun every day here. It has to be around our natural assets – there is nowhere else in the country that can offer the coast, city, and rural areas that we can. We need to take the opportunity to promote that and sell it at every opportunity.”
Overall, the figures show steady year-on-year growth for the local visitor economy in County Durham and a return to form post-Covid. All indications, following another year of investment and regeneration across County Durham, suggest those healthy figures have continued in 2024 heading into 2025.
Beamish was the most visited attraction in 2023 with 801,756 visitors ahead of Durham Cathedral, Hamsterley Forest, and Locomotion in Shildon.
The 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway will be marked with a series of events across County Durham. Lumiere, the popular light festival, will return to Durham City, while the former Durham Light Infantry Museum and Art Gallery will act as a new cultural venue offering a meeting place and creative hub.
The diverse programme of events will coincide with the council launching a charitable trust to support cultural venues and unlock access to additional funding.
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