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South Yorks lures the tourists
WITHOUT a coastline or a neon-soaked promenade in sight, South Yorkshire is not what you would call a traditional tourist destination.
But then again, the county isn't attracting traditional tourists.
What we have our eye on is something much more specific – and, word has it, they are coming here in their thousands.
"The success we see in South Yorkshire is not so much the traditional tourists looking for seaside resorts because, clearly, we don't have that," said Richard Jones, chief executive of Yorkshire South Tourism.
"What we want to do is use other types of tourism to our advantage and our main focus has been business tourists.
"By this, we mean people who organise events such as conferences or exhibitions and can make use of our county's facilities.
"It's our job to impress them so much they want to stay on and to come back."
Yorkshire South Tourism is celebrating its second birthday, marking two years of sustained and successful marketing activity promoting the region as a business and leisure tourism destination.
Set up in 2006, Yorkshire South Tourism is the county tourism partnership for the four local authorities – Sheffield, Doncaster, Rotherham and Barnsley councils.
The brief given was to act as an agent for change in developing and promoting tourism in the county.
And, so far, it seems to be working.
"Our research has shown that over 60 per cent of those business tourists who come to South Yorkshire will return again within six months," said Richard.
"And this is because of the range of venues South Yorkshire has to offer – there's Doncaster Racecourse, Don Valley Stadium, numerous football clubs and iceSheffield to name just a few."
One of the key successes for the relatively young Yorkshire South Tourism team was winning the coveted UK Best Destination Award at business tourism's most prestigious event – International Confex 2008.
This was followed by a raft of wins for Yorkshire South venues – which includes Sheffield International Venues and a string of high profile hotels – at Yorkshire Business Insider's Business Tourism awards in March.
Richard says the idea behind Yorkshire South Tourism is to entice people who are organising or attending events to do so in South Yorkshire.
One of the team's key initiatives is the Ambassador's Programme, through which a network of conference ambassadors promote the region as a destination for society or association events.
Since its launch last November the programme has recruited 59 ambassadors and secured nine events for the region.
"According to the respected British Conference Venues Survey, business tourism in South Yorkshire increased by a massive 50m last year," said Richard.
"This is a great achievement and something that we are proud to have contributed towards.
"Sheffield hosts some fantastic events like the Snooker World Championship and last year's UK Corporate Games.
"Events like this are a great opportunity to show off South Yorkshire and what it has to offer."
Yorkshire South Tourism operates a partnership team which allows tourism businesses to buy in to Yorkshire South in order to benefit from its marketing activities and networks. This means attractions – such as hotels – who sign up are associated with the events and venues already being promoted by the organisation.
And they can also rely on Yorkshire South to handle their publicity needs.
"There's a knock-on effect because once we have a group attending a conference at one of our venues they will probably want to stay overnight," said Richard.
"This way they can book into one of our hotels. By all working in partnership we are putting ourselves in the best possible position to deliver a package that is exactly what the customer wants."
Chris Welsh, chairman of Yorkshire South, said: "We are delighted with the support of the private sector within our region and many tourism businesses are now benefiting from activity being undertaken by us or from the help and advice we can give them.
"The forth coming year is an exciting one with lots of new developments getting under way, new hotels opening and exciting new products and exhibitions."
"We also look forward to liaising with other area tourism partnerships, Yorkshire Tourist Board and Yorkshire Forward to look at the future of tourism within the wider Yorkshire region."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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