Tourism now worth £4bn a year to the region

Sep 24 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

THE value of tourism to the North East economy has jumped by 30% in the last five years to be worth almost £4bn annually to the region.

The figures come from regional development agency One NorthEast, which says the number of people directly employed by tourism shot up by 14.5% to 60,775 in 2007, and that an extra million visitors stayed overnight in the region, a rise of 12% to nine million.

Louise Davis, head of tourism and culture, said the figures were a reflection of the massive investment that had taken place.

“There has been a really concerted effort with ourselves and our partners working together,” she said.

“You look at the private sector – hotels like Doxford Hall in Northumberland and the hotel investment in Newcastle Gateshead on the back of cultural regeneration. It’s the quality of place agenda.”

The agency has spent £34.5m on promoting the region and there has been £105m of private investment in hotels and attractions.

The money has gone on initiatives such as the first TV advert promoting the area in 2006, launching a tourism strategy and the Passionate People, Passionate Places marketing campaign.

The new figures were pulled together using the ‘Steam,’ methodology, which makes calculations based on the national UK Tourism Survey, the UK Passenger Survey, plus regional visitor and economic impact studies.

They also show that in the last five years, the North East recorded a 3.8% increase in visitor numbers.

Minister for the North East Nick Brown welcomed the figures. He said: “These are incredible results for the tourism and hospitality sector in the North East and I am not surprised at all.

“They show how hard we have been working to improve the sector. There has been a lot of detailed work behind the scenes, not just from One NorthEast but everyone involved in tourism.

“I think this region has a lot more to offer than we did a decade ago and we have got attractions such as the Sage, which bring people who might not have been to the North East before, and you add that to our traditional attractions such as Durham Cathedral, Hadrian’s Wall or beautiful Northumberland.

“It is no surprise that more people are visiting us.”

The poor weather and the faltering economy remain causes for concern, although Ms Davis said it was too early to judge their impact on this summer’s tourism trade.

“It’s been a difficult year this year because of the weather and people’s discrete spend has been affected. Some of the those who do collect the figures are sending out quite conflicting messages,” she said.

There are also worries about the effect of the demise of the ferry service between North Shields and Norway, which ended on September 1. Although just 16% of visitors to the region come from abroad, Norwegian visitors were a key element.

“It is likely to have an impact.,” said Ms Davis. “It depends if the Port of Tyne can secure another commercial operator. We’re working along with the Port of Tyne and other partners.”

Ross Smith, head of policy at the North East Chamber of commerce, said: “We have seen a dedicated effort over the last few years to build this up and we are starting to see the results.”

Andrew Dixon, chief executive of the NewcastleGateshead Initiative, said tourism in the “twin cities” was worth £1.2bn in 2007, a 4% increase on the previous year.

“Who would have imagined 10 years ago that we would be seeing this kind of sustained growth in the tourism economy?” he said.