Visitor Economy

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As Make It York, it is our privilege to be the city’s destination management organisation, enhancing and promoting York as a world-class destination.

Our Visit York brand continues to play a pivotal and positive role in positioning the city of York to attract leisure and business tourism visitors, as well as engaging and inspiring residents to celebrate the joy of living in the city of York.

Our marketing campaigns drive traffic to our digital channels and footfall to the city’s annual programme of events and festivals.

To this end, we have seen over 45 million impressions on our Visit York social media channels in the past 2 years, with more than 1.9 million engagements and gained over 33,000 new followers. Allied to this, our communications team generated a PR reach of 44,141,791 and an advertising value equivalent of £2,169,201.48 in the same period.

1.6 million users visited VisitYork.org in 2022 and the social posts on our Visit York channels generated 23.7 million impressions and 1 million engagements; just one of the many reasons why events and festivals in York attract such strong footfall.

At the time of writing, Visit York has a total of 177,119 followers across Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram.

Visit York: What We Do

Visit York Website

Visit York’s website, visityork.org, is visited by millions of users each year and provides a comprehensive guide to things to do in the city and beyond, along with information on events, travel, shopping and accommodation.

Visit York Information Centre & Gift Shop

The Visit York Visitor Information Centre is based in the heart of the city, not far from the iconic York Minster. Our friendly assistants share their expert local knowledge of attractions, travel information, places to eat, shops and events with thousands of visitors and residents each year .

Visitor Statistics

York has been a tourist destination for 2,000 years since being founded by the Romans in 71 AD and concurred and settled by the Danes 1000 years later.

These days, York welcomes 8.9 million visitors every year, of which the total value to York’s economy is £1.7 billion. The visitor economy supports 17,000 jobs in the city and a fifth of York’s visitors stay overnight with £249 million of direct spend from visitors going towards accommodation. 

 We also welcome close to 900k conference and event delegates per year.

For more in-depth statistics, please click to see our key visitor economy facts.

Discover More of Make It York

Culture

Ensuring that culture is relevant and accessible to everybody in York by placing culture at the heart of our activities.

Events

Supporting markets, festivals, and delivering, attracting and facilitating world-class cultural and creative events.

Markets

Managing and developing York’s historic Shambles Market and St Nicholas Fair Christmas Market. 

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