Boosting Beyond the Pandemic: Northumberland’s Tourism Recovery

Northumberland has emerged as a popular tourist destination in recent years, with Holy Island drawing over a million visitors annually. In spring 2023, two new attractions, Lilidorei play park in Alnwick and Ad Gefrin whisky distillery and museum in Wooler, opened their doors to the public. These additions may have contributed to boosting the county’s annual visitor numbers to over 10 million.

According to the latest Steam report, tourism added £1.2 billion to Northumberland’s economy in 2023, which is an impressive 7% increase from the previous year. Despite this, visitor numbers are still about 5% lower than pre-pandemic levels. However, there is cautious optimism among tourism officials in Northumberland as they see progress towards recovery. Andrew Fox, chair of Visit Northumberland, highlighted that while there has been some improvement, economic impact remains behind compared to before the pandemic.

Day visitors have increased by 2.7%, with events like the Alnwick Winter Light trail attracting people even out of season. Local business owners like Michael Dawson who runs restaurants and pubs in Northumberland have noticed an increase in visitors but a decrease in spending due to the current cost of living crisis. Despite this, data shows that tourism is thriving across the region with over 69 million visitors welcomed by the seven local authorities covered by Destination North East England in 2023 – an increase of 5% from the previous year.