Record visitors for historic attraction
Feb 26 2008 by Phil Lambell, The Journal
ONE of the North’s most famous tourist attractions has emerged from darkness to celebrate its best ever visitor numbers, figures revealed yesterday.
Cragside in Northumberland reopened in April last year after being closed for 18 months while its 60-year-old electrics were replaced.
In the year before the lights went off at the home of Lord Armstrong in October 2005, staff welcomed 163,500 people into the 100,000-acre estate.
But since it reopened 10 months ago, more than 200,000 visitors have come through its gates, the first time Cragside has passed that milestone.
It is among a host of visitor attractions in the region that defied one of the wettest summers on record to attract more than seven million people in 2007.
Yesterday Justine James, Cragside’s visitor services manager, said: “It has been absolutely fantastic. We wondered at one point when the weather was iffy if we would get near the 200,000, but they just kept coming.
“When a property has been out of use for a while, there’s always a proportionate jump in visitor numbers. We were expecting an uplift, but possibly not as big as we got.”
Another National Trust property in Northumberland, Wallington Hall, was also among the highest climbers last year for visitor numbers, going up 16% to 189,851.
The hall closed for restoration in 2003 and property manager Paul Nicoll said visitor numbers since had shot up.
He added: “The North East has become much more of a tourist destination. There are more tourists now in the area, and people have got to know more about us. We’ve built on the marketing that happened for the reopening of the property and we now get a lot of repeat visitors who truly enjoy visiting us and feel at home here.”
Figures for 2007, released yesterday by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, are featured on the map above, but figures from tourism chiefs at One NorthEast show rises across the region’s museums and galleries.
The Alnwick Garden had its best year on record, with visitor numbers going up by 21% to 591,156. The Bowes Museum in County Durham had 5,500 more visitors, and Belsay Hall in Northumberland saw visitors numbers rise by more than 30%, to 82,120.
And mima, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, recorded 151,000 visitors in its first year of opening – more than 30,000 more than was projected.
Etal Castle, in Etal village, Northumberland, saw almost 1,300 extra visitors in 2007, and Stephenson’s Railway Museum in North Tyneside saw visitors numbers rise by 74% to 42,290.
Louise Davis, head of tourism at One NorthEast, said: “Despite it being one of the wettest summers on record last year, many of our outdoor attractions still achieved record numbers.
“Visitor revenue has grown by more than £200m since 2003, with more than 10% growth in overnight visits to North East England during that time and tourism developments worth more than £40m opening last year.
“In 2006 the visitor economy generated £3.4bn revenue, broadly in line with the year before, despite a slight drop in visitor days and visitor numbers on the previous year.”
Comment: Page 10
