Busy Summer for hospitality industry on the Yorkshire Coast
A Scarborough hotelier reckons people are choosing to holiday in the UK rather than abroad
A Scarborough hotel owner has been talking about how hospitality bookings are going on the Yorkshire Coast.
It is after reports elsewhere that half of places in Cornwall are already filled up for the Summer.
Tony Bates, who runs Hotel Ellenby in Scarborough, reckons people are choosing to holiday in the UK again rather than going abroad.
He said: "We tend to find as a small hotel in Scarborough that some people would have had a main holiday abroad, some even have a cruise or whatever, with maybe two or three sort of mini breaks but we have found people lengthening their stays because they're forgoing the foreign holiday but coming more often to us.
"The way we sit at the moment I've got to say I looked through the bookings the other day and I surprised myself at how busy we are because we tend to find people start booking now, they don't book too far in advance and even I think for the UK people don't want to book too far in advance, because we don't know what our restrictions are likely to be but certainly the signs are very, very good.
"We always get bookings with the Open Air Theatre and they've released quite a lot of very good acts. We have one particular person that's coming from Nottingham, has done for years and they're coming for the third time this year because they're booked in for concerts. We then find that the cricket as soon as the dates come out for cricket people wil come, there's no question we'll be full for that.
"People either fell in love with Scarborough for the first time or it re-ignited their passion for Scarborough because it does get seen as being donkeys on the beach and amusements. We've got surfers here and years ago that wouldn't have happened, we've got quite a strong surfing community with paddleboarders so I think there are all these different reasons you can package Scarborough up."