Selecting a sensational city break
The challenge
Understanding why people choose to visit a city is essential for the local economy, attractions and local government. We’ve conducted the prestigious visitor market research for York for more than a decade.
Objectives
- To understand why visitors chose to come to this tourist destination
- To understand levels of satisfaction with the facilities provided
- To evaluate awareness of and usage of attractions
- To determine length of stay
- To understand visitor requirements in terms of evening entertainment and feed relevant findings into
designing marketing strategies to increase levels of satisfaction
Our approach
We interview 1,000 visitors face to face at ten locations in the city throughout the year. Questions range from asking why they choose to go there, how long they stayed and how much they spent. We record the sources of information they used and how satisfied they were with their experience.
In total, we completed more than 10,000 interviews during the course of this research.
Outcomes
The survey has been extended to incorporate an assessment of the economic impact of:
- Moving the Ascot race meeting to York when the Ascot course was being redeveloped
- Starting the Tour de France cycle race from York
- Running the Illuminating York festival, a celebration of the transformative power of light
This survey provides essential data on visitors to this city. Key statistics are the ratio of UK visitors to overseas visitors the length of their respective stays and the amount they spent.
The visitor market research results are enormously helpful for Make It York. This organisation is responsible for development of tourism in the region.