YORK is to host the UK's biggest tourism conference with 1,000 people set to visit the city from across the region.

York Barbican has been chosen as the venue for this year's Welcome to Yorkshire annual conference Y16.

The event, due to be staged next month on March 23, will see new campaigns and projects launched to boost tourism in the area.

Headline announcements and special guests are yet to be revealed, however the event will be hosted by national sports presenter Rob Walker.

Previous Y conferences have welcomed a range of famous faces from Last Tango in Halifax star Dean Andrews to Paralympian Hannah Cockroft, and even the Deputy Prime Minister.

Sir Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: "This is a not-to-be-missed chance to get businesses across Yorkshire together to showcase what’s planned for the year ahead and make no mistake, it’s going to be another exciting year.

"Y16 promises to inspire and entertain and bring the great and good of Yorkshire tourism together to make things happen."

Hosting the region tourism, which is the largest of its kind in the UK, is the latest coup for York as looks to bolster its tourist industry following the devastating post-Christmas floods.

Last week York's tourism body Visit York announced it was launching a new marketing campaign dubbing York the "original city adventure" to bring British families and couples to the city this spring.

Heralded as the biggest domestic tourism campaign York and North Yorkshire has ever seen, the campaign is going live today, and will run all the way through Easter, with the city set to appear on adverts on the London Underground, in national newspaper adverts, and in a social media push aimed at audiences in London and the South East, as well as key markets in Scotland and the North.

Last week also saw Virgin Trains knock 30-per cent off advance tickets for the east coast line in a bid to attract tourists to the city and boost businesses recovering from the floods.

Details of the deal were announced by the Culture Secretary John Whittingdale, on a visit to York to see how the city’s tourist businesses are getting back on their feet.