The Vikings didn’t manage to travel the world without knowing where and when to anchor their boats and pitch their tents, and the Norse invaders arriving for JORVIK Viking Festival this weekend (15 February) are tweaking their plans slightly with Storm Dennis expected to unleash its fury over the next few days.

At the UKinbound Awards for Excellence last night (6^th Feb), Visit York’s Joseph Unwin was presented with a prestigious Young Excellence Award in recognition of his commitment to the tourism industry and exceptional customer service skills.

Finalists in the Visit York Tourism Awards, sponsored by LNER, have been revealed today. The prestigious awards ceremony returns on Thursday 23^rd April 2020 with the best of York’s businesses going head to head to win one of 17 trophies. The event aims to shine a spotlight on excellence in York’s tourism sector and reward outstanding service, innovation and quality. 

The annual York Residents Festival celebrated its 25^th anniversary this weekend (25^th-26^th January) with its biggest programme of activity to date – with a wide variety of attractions, shops, restaurants and partners around the city providing more than 100 offers exclusively for York residents. The event proved highly popular this year with thousands of residents taking part over the two day festival.

This week (21^st January), York-based charity Lollipop were presented with a donation of over £1000 from Make It York following fundraising by staff from their tourism team and Visit York members for the 2019 York Rotary Dragon Boat Challenge.

York Literature Festival is back with its annual celebration of the written and spoken word. Starting on 19 March 2020, it runs for a ten-day period packed with over 50 events featuring well-known personalities, authors, poetry, history, politics and a special day devoted to the writing of crime.

Voyaging Vikings will be making a nine day stop in York next month, as the city welcomes its 36^th annual celebration of all things Norse – the largest event of its kind in Europe – at the JORVIK Viking Festival, running from Saturday 15 to Sunday 23 February.

Stay longer and explore more; this was the main message for York’s visitors over 2020 and beyond, as ambitions and plans for the future of tourism in the city were shared at Visit York’s annual Tourism Conference yesterday, sponsored by LNER and held at York Racecourse. 

Spirits will be high at Castle Howard in 2020 as the historic Yorkshire estate creates a partnership with local gin distillers, Sloemotion, to develop a new premium quality drink inspired by the 8000 acre estate, as well as hosting events celebrating nature and foraging.