Published October 7, 2016 at 15:45
Latest tourism data from Visit Lancashire shows Rossendale’s tourism offer is appealing to even more people and continuing its upward trend.
The latest data, for 2015, shows that Rossendale saw over 1.3million tourism visits to the area, increasing 2% on last year, outpacing average growth of 1.7% (64.38m visits) across Lancashire as a whole.
Rossendale Council worked hard in 2015 to redevelop Rossendale’s tourism offer for Rossendale, with a new ’48 Hours in the Valley’ guide and an improved Visit Rossendale website. This work has paid off in the latest stats, with overnight visitor numbers increasing by 2.4% on last year, to 327,000 nights staying in the Valley, despite a slight decrease across the rest of Lancashire for staying visitors. The economic impact of these staying visitors is £13.747million to the local Rossendale economy, a 7% increase on last year, showing that visitors are both staying more, and spending more locally when they do. The number of day visitors also increased, by 2%, to 1.173milllion, with their economic impact rising 3.1% to £38.966million.
Cllr Andy MacNae, Tourism lead at Rossendale Council welcomed the new data;
“It’s excellent to see this improved tourism data for Rossendale, it shows that the work we undertook on improving our tourism communications has paid off and is benefitting the local economy. Improving the offer in Rossendale with facilities like Grip and Go and The Whitaker will also be reflected in these positive figures. We know there is still more growth in us and we will continue to work with providers to realise Rossendale’s full potential.”
Sarah Davies, Director of Business at Rossendale Council said;
“Tourism touches businesses across Rossendale, and is an important part of our economy, and our pride in the Valley. These achievements demonstrate how great cultural, heritage, sports and outdoor facilities across Rossendale have an appeal far beyond our borders. We need to build on this success as we work with communities to develop plans for Rawtenstall Town Centre. As a Council we suspect that further growth is in the pipeline, as developments like New Hall Hey, improvements to the ELR, Bacup Heritage and the burgeoning cultural offers of the Boo, great shopping and eating at Haslingden take effect.”
The Council works very closely with Visit Lancashire, we are currently working on our Adrenaline Valley offer with providers as Rossendale is seen as the market leader in this visitor area for Lancashire, and we hope to see our work on this reflected in statistics in future years.
Filed under : tourism