As Visit North Yorkshire, our activities will promote North Yorkshire as a must-visit destination. We will identify opportunities and deliver marketing activity designed to bring overnight visitors to North Yorkshire. By targeting our activities to new audiences, for quieter times of year and by showcasing parts of the county that might not be as well-known we can increase the value of tourism and economic benefits to North Yorkshire and its businesses.
Under the new county-wide destination brand of Visit North Yorkshire, we have already:
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- Attended events such as the Great Yorkshire Show and World Travel Market
- created a brand new visitor guide
- started to build a comprehensive library of vibrant destination imagery and video
- created an interim destination website
- Begun delivery of marketing campaigns for North Yorkshire
Audiences
Marketing activity will be targeted at four key audiences, using data from Visit England:
Find more information here about the Visit England Audience Groups.
Audiences to maintain
“Country Loving Traditionalists” and “Fun in the Sun“
These are visitors that already come to North Yorkshire on holidays and short breaks. We will work to continue to appeal to these visitors through our marketing activities.
Audiences to grow
“Aspirational Family Fun” and “Free and Easy Mini-breaker”s
We know these audiences enjoy doing things on short breaks and holidays that North Yorkshire offers. However, at present, they only visit in low numbers. We want to encourage them to choose North Yorkshire for their next break.
Residents
We will continue to serve North Yorkshire’s residents, an important audience we engage via activity on our website and social media channels.
Our Marketing Campaigns
“Find your escape”
Themed around the incredible range and variety of gardens and open spaces to be found across North Yorkshire, mixing traditional gardens with heritage, design, art and natural wonder.
This campaign targets the Country Loving Traditionalists and Aspirational Family Fun audiences. It aims to increase the number of overnight stays by encouraging visitors to plan their break in the area with a focus on experiencing North Yorkshire’s beautiful gardens and outdoor spaces.
The Find Your Escape campaign will run through to October 2024 combining print, video and social media.
“Time to Get Away”
Targeted at Free and Easy Mini-breakers, the younger, pre-family market, this campaign will highlight North Yorkshire’s position as a first-choice destination for unique experiences and adventure, mixing outdoor activities, feel-good experiences and Instagrammable locations.
This campaign has the objective of promoting visits in the quieter seasons, and travel via public transport, the campaign will run from summer 2024 to early 2025.
“Family Fun”
Our year-round family-themed social media activity will peak during key school holidays targeting families planning days out, short getaways and visiting friends and family.
This summer, we engaged three Yorkshire-based family influencers to visit a local attraction with their children, with the aim of showcasing the family-friendly experiences on offer across the county.
Each influencer reviewed their experience in a reel shared to their social channels, engaging their followers and encouraging them to follow Visit North Yorkshire’s channels for more inspiration.
Further trips will follow for Halloween and Christmas.
Seasonal Marketing Activity
Christmas
Our Christmas campaign will inspire domestic visitors to enjoy the festive period across North Yorkshire’s many attractions, markets and town centres.
Targeting residents and visitors within a 1-2 hour drive time, this campaign covers multiple audiences, with a focus on families who are looking for different festive experiences, whether visiting for a few days or a longer stay.
Plans include a printed guide covering events and activities across the county, social media advertising, online advertising and radio.
More details of our Christmas activity across North Yorkshire are coming soon
Website development
Visit North Yorkshire will deliver a new website for the county powered by an eTourism system that will capture everything this county has to offer visitors.
The new website will be in place for the 2025 season and allow visitors to browse, book and be inspired for their visit – placing tourism businesses at the heart of our offer.
While we develop the new website we will continue to fully support our existing destination websites:
The interim North Yorkshire site you are currently viewing will act as a gateway and hub for visitor information and campaign activity during this period. When our replacement North Yorkshire site goes live all web listings from our existing sites will migrate seamlessly to the new site and all memberships will continue uninterrupted.
So wherever in North Yorkshire you are, get in touch to find out how you can get involved with Visit North Yorkshire today.
Visitor Guide
In January 2024 Visit North Yorkshire produced the first visitor guide to cover the entire county. The A4, 100-page guide provided inspiration for potential visitors, focusing on both place and themes, supported by advertising from tourism businesses. 80,000 copies were printed and distributed in key geographical and high footfall areas as well as at shows such as the Great Yorkshire Show and the Holiday and Travel Shows.
The guide is produced by Offstone Publishing.
New for 2025, alongside the main Visitor Guide, which will be produced in January 2025, we are introducing the addition of two pocket guides. The smaller publications will act as a comprehensive guide to assist potential visitors to plan their activities and events during their stay. One of the guides will cover the Yorkshire Coast and North York Moors, replacing the Discover Yorkshire Coast Attractions and Events guide and the second will cover the Heart of Yorkshire, including locations such as Richmondshire, Harrogate, Ripon and Selby and the Yorkshire Dales.
Advertising opportunities are available across the three guides, to find out more about the upcoming guides and how to be involved – contact us or download the advertiser pack.
Event Venue Guide
The Visit North Yorkshire events team attend key trade shows such as The Meeting Show and the Corporate Hospitality Show in Leeds to showcase the area as a great place to hold a conference, exhibition or event. As part of this activity, a new North Yorkshire Venue Guide has been produced, listing the breadth of venues available across the county.
The conference market plays a big part in bringing visitors to the county and business visitors often return after the event for a leisure break with family or friends.
For information on how to be included in a future guide, contact us.