Pam Whittaker
Yorkshire Dales Joint Promotion Tourist Initiative

Peak times for visits
There obviously are peak times when there are too many visitors and you know I think if we could persuade people not to come on Bank Holiday Sundays and Mondays we would overcome that, but people like to come out at that time. On the whole the local people are beginning to realise the importance of tourism and the fact that tourism spending as well as maintaining the jobs directly through B&Bs and self catering accommodation, they spend in shops, they might be helping to maintain bus services, local post offices, village shops and they’re all important parts of the economy. The area where we do get conflict is traffic. The local people, ‘cos they know the roads they don’t want to go slow down the country lanes like the visitors do, and I think they get a bit frustrated. But I think we’ve all got to rub along together and try and live side by side and it’s part of my job to persuade local people that tourists are important as well as being a little bit of a problem at times!

Qualities to promote
We promote the area on its landscape and beauty, and the quality of that is important as well. That’s why we work very closely with the National Park Authority because we don’t want to get visitors to go down, for example, a footpath that’s got terrible erosion. First because it gives a bad impression to the visitor, but secondly it’s only going to get worse if visitors go down there. It’s quality that we try and promote. But I think we’re marketing a real experience. I mean, you’re coming to the Yorkshire Dales and you’re sampling the landscape and the walking and little villages and local activities. You’re not coming to an artificial attraction where you pay a lot of money to park your car. I think really we’re marketing a real experience here.

The importance of tourism
Staying visitors are often much more receptive to environmental messages and to be encouraged to walk, take days without their car. So we’re trying to target those visitors. And if you’re not out there marketing the Yorkshire Dales, over a period of time, those visitors will start to go somewhere else and you experience a slow decline. So it’s important that we’re always out there in the marketplace.

Where to promote tourism
Well if you look at the Yorkshire Dales guide that we use to promote the area to visitors, you won’t find any photographs of the honeypot areas - there’ll be nothing of Malham and Gordale Scar. We think there are so many other super spots that we can promote them and relieve some of the pressure on those honeypots. We also suggest to visitors that when they come here they might like to consider having at least one day without using the car - either using a bicycle or just going for a walk, and that little contribution - not using the car for just one day - can make quite a valid difference if you think of the actual number of visitors coming into the area. Generally, the feedback that we’ve got from research that we’ve done on the guide, people are sympathetic to conservation messages. They want to feel that they’re doing some good to the local economy, so that’s why we keep focusing on messages that this is a special area and soliciting their sympathy and support.