Tourism’s Positive Regional and Local Impact

We are pleased to share North Yorkshire’s latest STEAM tourism data for 2024.

STEAM (Scarborough Tourism Economic Activity Monitor) is a tourism economic impact modelling process which approaches the measurement of tourism from the bottom up, through its use of local supply side data and tourism performance and visitor survey data collection.

STEAM quantifies the local economic impact of tourism, from both staying and day visitors, through analysis and use of a variety of inputs including visitor attraction numbers, tourist accommodation bed stock, events attendance, occupancy levels, accommodation tariffs, macroeconomic factors, visitor expenditure levels, transport use levels and tourism-specific economic multipliers.

Key 2024 headlines 

  • North Yorkshire’s visitor economy is worth £4.2 billion, up 3.9% on 2023 (not accounting for inflation).
  • North Yorkshire welcomed 32.2 million people to the region in 2024 including both day and overnight visitors, up 3.8% on 2023.
  • 38,020 people are employed in full-time equivalent roles in North Yorkshire’s visitor economy
  • 26.2 million people visited North Yorkshire for a day trip, up 5.2% on 2023 and just over 6 million stayed overnight, down 2% on 2023*.
  • The average length of stay of North Yorkshire’s visitors is 4.0 days, in line with 2023, and significantly higher than the national average of 3 nights or less (Source: VisitBritain).

* A decrease in overnight stays by domestic visitors decreased nationally in 2024 with Visit England reporting a decrease of 10% from 2023. Although North Yorkshire overnight stays decreased by 2%, we are still outperforming the national average.

Towns in focus

To supplement the data we commission at a North Yorkshire level, we are also pleased to share corresponding headline data for some of North Yorkshire’s key destinations.  N.B economic impact variances don’t account for inflation.

Ripon

  • Economic impact: 87.79M (+7.2% from 2023)
  • 598,000 visitors (+2.5% from 2023), spending 1M days in Ripon
  • 764 FTE employment in Tourism (+0.2% from 2023)

Harrogate 

  • Economic impact: 483.4M (+6.9% from 2023)
  • 3,1M visitors (+2.8% from 2023), spending 4.9M days in Harrogate (+2.4% from 2023)
  • 4,239 FTE employment in Tourism (+0.7% from 2023)

Northallerton 

  • Economic impact: 52.62M (+12.7% from 2023)
  • 634,000 visitors (+4.9% from 2023), spending 843,000 days in Northallerton (+7.4% from 2023)
  • 524 FTE employment in Tourism (+8.1% from 2023)

Scarborough 

  • Economic impact: 579.54M (+3.2% from 2023)
  • 3.9M visitors (+4.7% from 2023), spending 6.5M days in Scarborough (+2% from 2023)
  • 5,534 FTE employment in Tourism (-1.7% from 2023)

Skipton 

  • Economic impact: 213.58M (+3.2% from 2023)
  • 1.7M visitors (+3% from 2023), spending 2.6M days in Skipton (+1.3% from 2023)
  • 2,155 FTE employment in Tourism (-2.2% from 2023)

For further information on the 2024 STEAM results, please contact the Visit North Yorkshire team. https://visitnorthyorkshire.com/contact