Major tourism campaign launched to make Sheffield a top 'staycation destination'

Front, ilk Agency, and Salt Street Productions have been commissioned to help promote The Outdoor City as a staycation destination and encourage people to safely return to the city.

Having received a grant from the European Union’s Welcome Back Fund, the campaign work will focus on encouraging domestic tourism, as well as promoting the Summer in The Outdoor City event series to local and regional audiences.

The campaign will also promote an additional programme of special one-off cultural, music and market events which will be taking place across Sheffield City Centre and other District Centres this summer, with details still to be announced.

Mark Mobbs, marketing manager for City Campaigns at Sheffield City Council, said: “We’re really excited to work with these three separate agencies to pool their expertise and deliver one consistent place-led approach for promoting Sheffield.

“We’ve called ourselves The Outdoor City since 2015 thanks to such a vibrant outdoor community here, but the newfound appreciation for green spaces as well as an increase in domestic tourism this year gives us a real opportunity to show how nature and culture go hand in hand here – and whilst we know that experience is something a lot of our residents already value, we want to share it with visitors too.”

Andy Haywood, creative director at Front, said: “Helping bring the City back to life and being part of the recovery is such an exciting opportunity, and we can’t wait to see it all in action.”

The underlying theme of the campaign is to promote the fact that with 61% green space and rich cultural heritage, Sheffield is one of the best-kept secrets in the country - and with so much going on and a huge amount of outdoors to enjoy, this summer is one of the best times to be there.

The city’s existing event programme includes Tramlines (the largest post-pandemic music festival in Europe and part of the UK Government’s Events Research Programme), Get Together, the Bears of Sheffield Trail, Art in the Gardens, No Bounds and Off The Shelf festivals, as well as the Sheffield Half Marathon, Heritage Open Days and Sheffield Walking Festival.