08/11/2010

A campaign to attract more visitors to Yorkshire has beaten competition from some of the biggest brands in the world to win the World's Leading Marketing Campaign.

Welcome to Yorkshire's "A long weekend in Yorkshire" campaign won the award at the prestigious World Travel Awards ceremony in London last night.

Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: "Winning this award crowns an incredible 18 months for tourism in Yorkshire. We have promoted Yorkshire's unique and diverse attractions across the county, across the UK and across the world and the response has been phenomenal. Visitor numbers to Yorkshire are up, interest in our county is up and the profile of Yorkshire as a tourism destination has never been higher.

"We are the best tourism agency in the UK without a doubt and that is because we have such a wonderful county to promote and such wonderful business to work with."

John Penrose MP, Minister for Tourism and Heritage, said: "This is fantastic news for the whole Welcome to Yorkshire team and I'd like to congratulate them on their success. Their hard work and continued enthusiasm has paid off and as the only tourist board in England to be nominated in this category this is not only great news for Yorkshire but the whole country too."

Gordon Gibb, chief executive of Flamingo Land, added: "The campaign by Welcome to Yorkshire has been beneficial to the whole county. The whole country knows the adverts, everyone knows Yorkshire.com and Yorkshire is at the forefront of people's minds more as a result. We are in no doubt that the increase in visitor numbers year-on-year that we are seeing at Flamingo Land is as a result, in part, of the work they have done."

25m people have seen the Welcome to Yorkshire marketing campaigns, just one strand of the high-profile promotion of the county, which also includes innovative use of social media, development of the award-winning yorkshire.com and regional, national and international media interest.  

The award comes on the back of a record breaking 18 months for the county with visitor numbers up 22% compared to a 12% increase in the UK.

The 2009/10 Regional Visitor Survey also indicated that 97% would recommend Yorkshire as a place to visit with 89% said they would be very likely to return to Yorkshire within two years.

 

FULL LIST OF WORLD'S LEADING MARKETING CAMPAIGN FINALISTS, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER:

Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority; Etihad Airways; Johannesburg Tourism Company; Kuoni Group; Qatar Airways; Visit Scotland; Welcome to Yorkshire.

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