New initiatives to ensure York's reputation continues to flourish

The schemes will be announced by York’s destination management organisation, Make It York, at its annual stakeholder meeting today.

Three hundred leaders from the York business, culture and tourism community will gather at the Principal York to hear the latest news from Make It York, which was formed two years ago.

As well announcing new initiatives, managing director, Steve Brown, will report on progress so far and set out priorities for the year ahead.

The audience will hear how the York Mediale, the city’s new international media arts festival, planned for October 2018, will engage over 100,000 people in cutting edge media arts, designed to capitalise on the city’s UNESCO City of Media Arts status.

York Mediale, a biennial festival, will be developed by creative director, Tom Higham, through a new community interest company, working closely with the York Guild of Media Arts and in partnership with a range of organisations across York, the UK and internationally.

Tom Higham, Director, York Mediale, said: "York Mediale is about grasping this opportunity that UNESCO status offers for York and showcasing York’s creative talent in areas such as digital art, gaming, film and computer animation. It’s a chance to develop a world class international media arts festival for York."

A new Business Ambassador Programme will be officially launched at the meeting, which will harness the skills and influence of 50 of the city’s senior business executives. The scheme will encourage York’s top entrepreneurs to promote the city for inward investment and relocation.

Meanwhile, a new tourism website will be up and running in the autumn, delivered by digital agency, New Mind tellUs, appointed to provide a high quality website for the 21st century.

Visityork.org already generates more than a million unique users each year but with competition from across the globe, Make It York says it will be investing to ensure York has one of the best tourism websites in the country. Fully responsive, visityork.org will target local, national and international visitors, with a new mobile first experience.

Sally Greenaway, head of Visit York, a part of Make It York, said: “61 per cent of visitors are now searching for information on their mobile devices.

"We need to ensure York’s tourism website is slick, efficient and quite simply world class. We are excited about this step change to provide a first class digital experience for every single visitor, for today and the future.”

Internationally, tourism marketing activity will be focussed at audiences in the United States, Europe and China and early discussions with Hainan Airlines could see an Expo for York in Beijing early next year.

The audience will also hear that as the UK’s founding Science City, Science City York (SCY), as part of Make It York, has been busy supporting three key networks, Bioscience, Creative and IT/Digital, as well as building a new Agri-food network, with a brand new £1.7 million business support programme, funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

Highlights from the last year will also be disclosed at the event including a campaign to attract fresh, contemporary retailers to York and a new app, which was launched in summer 2016 to encourage resident students to explore their city more.

Other key initiatives over the last year have included the setting up of York Hive, a crowdfunding platform for community projects in the city. So far this has generated £59,000 of support, new festivals such as the York Easter Festival and hugely popular Ice Trail, as well as new events such as the York Culture Awards, established to showcase York’s vibrant cultural scene.

The audience will also hear how, over the last year, the city’s conference brand Visityork4meetings has generated more than £2 million of conference and event enquiries for the city.

Added to this a new ‘Incentive England’ project and new video have been launched, to attract high spending incentive travel business and conference buyers to the city.

Chair of Make It York, Jane Lady Gibson, said: “We have had a very focused plan of activity to grow the economy, delivering on a variety of projects to increase inward investment, support the agri-food sector and launching a major tourism campaign following the Boxing Day flooding. Businesses from right across the city and beyond have worked tirelessly with us to support projects which are now paying dividends across a whole range of sectors.”

Other initiatives in the pipeline, include the ambition to bring a Balloon Fiesta to York this autumn, an event which would see up to 50 hot air balloons filling the skies above York racecourse and plans to help Lunchbox Theatrical Productions to bring an exact replica of Shakespeare’s Globe to the city next summer.