Tourism is a major part of Cumbria’s economy supporting almost 75,000 jobs and worth £4.6 billion.
And yet there are challenges.
Cumbria Tourism, the organisation which represents over 4,500 tourism businesses, says visitor numbers are still below those recorded before the pandemic.
While initial soundings from the sector this summer show the fine weather has helped attract visitors to Cumbria, final figures won’t be known until the autumn.
For the newly appointed chair of Cumbria Tourism, a busy time in office looks inevitable.
Mark Holroyd has worked in tourism in a wide range of roles and is the head of recreation and communications for Forestry England in the north.
He’s been talking to Business Crack’s Nigel Thompson.
How did you start in tourism?
My career started in hotels and restaurants when I was a student and then I got into destination management as a tourism officer in Millom 15 years ago.
I went to get some sunshine in the south of England working for national parks in the New Forest and then I joined Forest England in 2019.
I’ve been on the board of Cumbria Tourism for a couple of years now and I’ve known the organisation for a long time.
The board asked me to be chair and it’s been a busy time since.
You’ve become chair at quite an interesting time for tourism for all kinds of reasons. Is tourism as an industry changing and therefore the demand for different kinds of facilities is changing with it as well?
We’re doing a really exciting piece of work as part of our destination management plan around developing a Cumbria coastal route that will encourage people to explore particularly the coast.
I think there’ll be a strong camping and motor home component to that linked to those formal facilities and businesses along the way.
In 2024 there was an 18% drop in day visitors but there was also a 10% increase in staying visitors which is really good to see.
As Cumbria Tourism we want to see a greater spread of visitors across the year.
We think there is a lot of scope to spread that out across the year, but also spread it geographically as well.
So to help people see those slightly quieter, less visited, less well known parts of Cumbia. So whether that be Carlisle, our coastline, the Eden Valley or the Western Dales areas.
We call that our attract and disperse campaign.
People are always going to come to Lake District; they’re always going to know Keswick, Windermere and Coniston.
They will always want to visit those areas but we want to show them that on either for part of their visit or for their next visit they can come and enjoy some of those other areas and spread the benefits of tourism.
Yet if people come to Cumbria the majority will want to see the home of Beatrix Potter, Windermere or buy Grasmere Gingerbread not necessarily visit Millom or Barrow. Is Cumbria sometimes too full?
I think people are always going to want to experience those experiences.
Yes, there are pressure points there and we need to try and look at the infrastructure around some of them. I think there’s a lot of opportunity in those busy spots to look at how public transport can play a role in lessening the impact of visitors.
And potentially also allow those areas to accommodate more in a sustainable way but I worry about us saying ‘too full’ because the evidence that we’re seeing from the data that we collect – which is a mix of data occupancy surveys from accommodation businesses from visitor attractions from car parks and transport counters -has shown that those businesses are struggling.
When I talk to businesses that’s what I hear as well.
We have compared to figures before the pandemic that is serious because that’s about the viability of businesses and the ability for us to create local employment.
Tourism businesses help sustain services for local people too that make this a vibrant and a great place to live.
If you look at the same survey that was carried out in North Yorkshire, just over the border, the results are quite different. There’s actually an increase in tourists going to North Yorkshire at the same time as numbers in Cumbia are decreasing. Why do you think there is such a difference?
It’s difficult to say exactly why North Yorkshire and I think also Northumberland are having different experiences.
They are increasing and they are increasing in those areas. This can be affected by new attractions opening or changes in the way that data is collected.
Places like Northumberland in particular are a growing destination. There are at a different stage in their journey. We do visitor surveys as well and we are not picking up any sort of dissatisfaction with Cumbria and in surveys of non-visitors too.
I don’t think there’s a perception issue that’s driving people away.
Places like Keswick thrive on ‘busyness’ – they’re quite exciting places to go but I was out, at the weekend at Aira Force and yes, the car parks and lay-bys were full but up on the fell it was beautiful and it was really tranquil and it doesn’t take long in Cumbria to find peace and quiet. And I think people know that.
Certainly on Facebook, the comments we seen on recent stories is that the county is big enough to swallow people. Is the challenge then ensuring there are public transport facilities inside the national park and elsewhere?
Yes. Which at the moment maybe aren’t there.
They are in some places and there’s very local, very effective in Ullswater where a shuttle works well.
Maybe before we start inviting more people to come we should make sure that Cumbria is fit to welcome them?
Our public transport network has come on a long way over the last few years and I think the fixed fare has made a huge difference.
I don’t know the numbers from Stagecoach but they tell me that they have seen really good growth in public transport and we have some fantastic corridors that work quite well.
So some brilliant work is going on around Ullswater and elswhere and some more focus work in places like Wasdale. But we know we need more sustainable transport. We’ve got Tom Waterhouse from Stagecoach on the board of Cumbria Tourism to help us make sure we’re joining up the dots.
A taxation on visitors has been proposed. What do you think about that?
We’re quite cautious about the idea at the moment primarily because we feel it’s been quite a hard time for tourism businesses.
They’re already – both tourism businesses and their customers – paying significant amounts in tax and business rates, in car parking and involuntary giving as well.
To levy an additional charge on tourists could have unintended consequences.
And it’s really important that we have a mature and sensible discussion and debate about this.
As Cumbria Tourism we are going to have that discussion with the industry and to hear what they think so that we can firm up our position and represent them well in it.
We’re not shutting down the debate. We want to have it. We do understand that tourism needs public investment.
I think our starting point would be that there’s already substantial tax revenues and other revenues being generated that that should be looked at first before running to the tourism tax lever.
It only takes a couple of seconds to say ‘we should have a tourism tax’ but actually the practicalities of how it would work, some of the risks and the potential unintended consequences should be thought through quite carefully.
The Big Windermere survey results have been released showing Windermere’s water quality. Do stories like this really hinder what you’re trying to do?
It’s concerning. We’re part of the Love Windermere partnership and want to see a science based approach to this that’s based on the science and the facts that are coming from those scientists that is shining a light on exactly what the problem is.
There is a reputational issue and businesses are talking to us about how that that is coming to life on the phone talking to prospective customers or questions that they’re being asked and that really shines a light on the urgency around it.
There’s also the campaign elements and that’s why working with the scientists and making sure that everything is transparent and accurate and is being portrayed properly is really important.
We said at the start of this conversation to be chairman at this moment in time is probably the one of the busiest periods you’ve ever had in the history of tourism. Cumbria Tourism has visited New Zealand and Australia to promote Cumbria. If you’re actively encouraging people to come from the far side of the world to this country that doesn’t sound sustainable.
International marketing is part of Cumbria Tourism’s work and that’s part of a UK effort through Visit Britain to grow the visitor economy across the country.
The Lake District is one of the brands that helps to draw people to the UK and international tourism is an area of our economy nationally that can grow.
While people are doing London, York and Edinburgh, I think the Lake District and Cumbria can appeal but also international visitors are often not with a car.
There is the carbon of their flight here but the carbon of their stay in the UK and certainly the impact on a local infrastructure can be slightly more manageable through, coaches and public transport. And they are a high value to us.
And if managed well, they can particularly help in those early parts of the shoulder seasons too.
Some of the heritage attractions around the Lake District can have a huge economic impact on their business from quite small volumes of visitors from America and that ultimately helps sustain these businesses for everybody else as well.
How are things looking at the moment, what indication have you had from your members so far about how this season is going?
In broad terms my focus is generally on the domestic market. I haven’t had many conversations so far about how people are doing with the international market this year. I think people are feeling that things are a bit better than last year, which is really encouraging.
We’ve obviously had much better weather this year than we did last year. We had a great spring heat wave. Things did slow quite substantially in June and early July period. It feels good around now, the end of school holiday period as we would expect. I’d be pretty worried if things weren’t feeling good.
I’m hopeful that we’ll have had a better year. I have heard some data that’s showing that some of the car park numbers and the Windermere car ferry numbers are down slightly as well. We don’t really get a full picture until we’ve got to the end of the season.
We do the end of year wash-up with our members which is when we get not just the number, but the story behind them too. Geopolitics and the global economy always plays a big role in that and you get some countries growing and some countries dipping.
I know that the Japanese market has been struggling which has always been a long term, very good one for Britain but the European market, I think is there and Germans and Dutch and French are here which his good to see.
Looking to the future what part does innovation play in keeping Cumbria relevant and interesting in a competitive market?
One of the challenges at the moment is around the perception of cost and all British destinations, not just the Lake District, being perceived as expensive for a staycation.
The answer to that isn’t to drop our prices but make sure we’re delivering absolute value for money and great experiences and that requires constant innovation on the, on the part of businesses.
I always use Peter Frost-Pennington at Muncaster Castle as an example because they’re out on the outer edge of Cumbria and in some ways one of the more challenging businesses for visitors to get to but they do get there and they do that through constant innovation and creativity.
I don’t need to tell businesses they need to do that; they’re doing that, but that continues to be really important for them.
The new observatory at Grisedale has been brilliant and that is an example of a new business opening up at a challenging time.
It’s going really really well. They opened at the start of the summer, not the perfect time for dark skies, but actually if you could make it work in the summer, then you can make it work all year round.
As we draw our discussion to a close, how do you feel about the role of chair and what you hope to achieve during your time?
I think when I finish as chair of Cumbria Tourism, whenever that may be, I want people to look back and, and see that tourism is a force for good in Cumbria. It’s the heart of our communities.
It’s the heart of what makes Cumbria an amazing place to live, work, study and invest so it’s really important – 28% of all jobs just sort of sums that up really.
And we have a huge amount to offer to the visitor and we have a great product that continually scores really well with visitors and I have no doubt that will change.
Yes, it’s really tough at the moment, but I think what we have learned over the past five years with the challenges of the pandemic is that we, the hospitality and tourism industry is brilliant at evolving and changing and turning at short notice to adapt to the environment that it operates in.
Cumbria Tourism will continue to help businesses to weather whatever changes are coming.
