Welcome to Yorkshire today revealed its ambitious plans to make Yorkshire the UK’s top destination.

1,500 people attended the Y 10 conference in Harrogate to hear major announcements which aim to raise Yorkshire’s profile to another level and attract more visitors.
Gary Verity, Welcome to Yorkshire’s chief executive, revealed that the tourism agency will be supporting a production of The Railway Children at Waterloo station in London, using real steam trains in the show. In what is seen as a major coup, an area of exhibition space at the entrance will also showcase the whole of Yorkshire, enticing Londoners and tourists in the capital to visit Yorkshire. The show will run from July 4th to the end of September 2010.

“When it ran at the National Railway Museum in York, The Railway Children attracted huge audiences which is not surprising as it is such an engaging, interactive experience. We are incredibly excited to be taking such a successful show to the new ‘Welcome to Yorkshire Theatre’ in London. This is a massive opportunity to raise the profile of Yorkshire in our capital city,” says Gary Verity.

Matthew Gale, theatre producer, says: “We are delighted to be working with Welcome to Yorkshire to bring Damian Cruden’s production of The Railway Children to our thrilling new performance space in London where theatregoers will be able to experience the show in the unique setting of Waterloo Station.”

It’s not just on stage where people will be seeing more of Yorkshire. Following the success of the television series The Lakes, Welcome to Yorkshire is working on a brand new television series, The Dales. It is hoped that filming will take place this summer with crews being stationed throughout the Yorkshire Dales to ensure they capture the essence of what makes this National Park such an attractive place to visit. The series is in the pipeline to be on television next year.

“The impact this is set to have on tourism figures cannot be underestimated,” Gary Verity added. “The Lakes attracted average audiences of 4.3 million viewers and we’re hoping even more will tune in for The Dales.”

Following the successful sponsorship of the hit television drama Heartbeat, which saw a substantial increase of visitors to the North York Moors and coast, Welcome to Yorkshire will this year be sponsoring one of the biggest shows on television, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Millions of viewers will be given a taste of Yorkshire during prime time viewing and encouraged to visit the region.

The Y 10 conference also saw the launch of a brand new advertising campaign, which will be rolled out across television, newspapers and magazines in 2010.
In a bid to promote the region’s vast array of stunning gardens, Yorkshire will have its very own garden at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show. The Yorkshire Garden has been named ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’s Rhubarb Crumble and Custard Garden’ and will use edible themes to highlight the diversity of the region’s food offering. The famous show will also be used to launch the new Yorkshire Gardens Campaign which will highlight beautiful gardens throughout the region which people can visit. For anyone who can’t make Chelsea, there will be another opportunity to see the Yorkshire Garden at this year’s Great Yorkshire Show in July.

The new Welcome to Yorkshire marketing campaign will also feature more cinema and press advertising, plus outdoor promotions and, in line with the success of Welcome to Yorkshire’s international campaigns, the website, yorkshire.com can now be read in six different languages including simplified Chinese. The previous 2009 campaign reached 93% of UK ABC1 adults, equivalent to 16.3 million people. The new campaign aims to top this. Delegates arriving into Harrogate for Y 10 saw the results of a partnership with Northern Rail – trains wrapped in the Yorkshire brand. This project is a first for Welcome to Yorkshire and Northern Rail as they have never produced this many branded trains at once. Ten Welcome to Yorkshire branded trains will travel within and out of the region – including Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria.

In 2009 major events drew thousands to the region. Following on from the successful sponsorship of The Ashes and Welcome to Yorkshire’s headline sponsorship of the 2010 Ebor Festival, Y 10 saw the launch of the Welcome to Yorkshire Golf campaign. The aim of which is to actively promote golf breaks in Yorkshire to attract a national and international audience.

Further announcements included:
Welcome to Yorkshire’s commitment to tourism businesses affected by the proposed tax on furnished lettings.
The introduction of the Yorkshire Pass; the first sightseeing pass for any UK region – it is believed to be the only regional sightseeing pass apart from one in Hawaii.
The hugely successful Scarborough Cricket Festival will be renamed ‘The Welcome to Yorkshire Scarborough Cricket Festival’.

The brand new Leeds sightseeing bus and boat will enable visitors to explore more of the city. The open top double-decker Leeds City Sightseeing Bus starts in May and will take in the major visitor attractions around the city. The Leeds City Cruiser is a new purpose built boat which will help visitors explore the historic waterways of Leeds.
New Dragon’s Den style funding grants for new product development projects.

A new contemporary art project, which forms part of the overall campaign activity and launches in spring.
New walking trails – The Turner Trail, which takes in the painter’s favourite locations, The Larkin Trail, which takes poetry lovers around Philip Larkin’s old haunts, and the Bradford City of Film Trail.
Welcome to Yorkshire was launched last year with £30 million pounds of funding over three years from Yorkshire Forward.

Gary Verity says:
“At Y 09 we launched Welcome to Yorkshire and made some big promises. Today we highlighted how we have fulfilled those promises and increased the number of visitors to the region. But we’re not resting on our laurels and have ambitious plans to do even better in 2010. Tourism is vitally important to the region’s economy and with over a quarter of a million people working in the tourism sector we are determined to do all we can to secure and hopefully, create more jobs.”

Y 10 Images will be available to download from the following link at 2pm
• Welcome to Yorkshire is the official tourism body for Yorkshire, working to grow the region’s visitor economy.
• Welcome to Yorkshire is funded by Yorkshire Forward, the Regional Development Agency charged with improving the Yorkshire and Humber economy.
• Key facts include: – Tourism in Yorkshire is worth £6.5 billion annually – The region’s industry employs a quarter of a million people – There are 209 million visits to Yorkshire each year

For further information please contact:

Dee Marshall – Head of Communications
Email: dmarshall@yorkshire.com
Direct Line: 0113 3223505
Mobile: 07950 325 901

Beverley Richmond – Press Officer
Email: brichmond@yorkshire.com
Direct Line: 0113 322 3507
Mobile: 07769 257380

Lucy Allen – Press Officer
Email: lallen@yorkshire.com
Direct Line: 0113 322 3563
Mobile: 07769257327

Andy Denton – Press Officer
Email: adenton@yorkshire.com
Direct Line: 0113 322 3537
Mobile: 0785 5812094