In the wake of tourism minister Janet Anderson's visit to Scarborough and Whitby, Stephen Lewis reports on moves to reverse the decline of seaside towns.

TOURISM, says Janet Anderson, was invented in Scarborough. It's a nice little soundbite, and may even be true. According to some sources, visitors first began to come to the seaside town when spring water was discovered there in 1626. During Victorian times - with the coming of the railway - it certainly was a favourite holiday destination for beach-bathers.

Just 20 to 30 years ago Scarborough and neighbouring Whitby were favourite spots for hordes of handkerchief-hatted British holidaymakers.

But times change. Like other seaside resorts, Scarborough and Whitby are struggling. The Brits have discovered a taste for foreign beaches: and Britain's traditional seaside resorts are having to make do with the day-trippers.

Visit Scarborough or Whitby on a Bank Holiday weekend and there would be little to suggest they were in decline. But increasingly it is becoming obvious that day-trippers packing the beaches and piers can't keep the economy of a whole town going.

The signs are there for all to see. Unemployment in the two towns of Scarborough and Whitby was at 4.5 per cent in June this year: more than double that of North Yorkshire as a whole. More than 2,000 people were out of work at a time of year when you would expect tourism to begin picking up.

The signs are there in the fabric of the towns, too. There's no doubting the natural beauty of the Yorkshire coastline, or the grandeur of many of the buildings in the two seaside towns. But areas of Scarborough such as the old open-air pool in South Bay and the derelict opera house in the town centre are eyesores. And while tourism chiefs in the towns insist there is nothing wrong with the quality of their beaches, it has to be disheartening that for the fourth year in succession not a single North or East Yorkshire beach was able to win a Tidy Britain Group Blue Flag

Tourism may have been invented in Scarborough. But now, as Mrs Anderson stressed, it is time for Scarborough and other seaside resorts like it to begin reinventing themselves.

Thankfully, it's not all doom and gloom. Tourism minister Mrs Anderson's visit to Scarborough and Whitby this week as part of a round-Britain fact-finding tour of the nation's seaside resorts was proof that the Government is beginning to take the predicament of our coastal communities seriously.

Her announcement of a coastal tourism initiative to help seaside resorts apply for grants to improve facilities and boost jobs is also welcome.

Details of just what the initiative will mean are hazy, and whether there will be any hard cash forthcoming is unclear. But what it will mean is greater priority for seaside towns making lottery bids to improve crumbling facilities, more support for bids for European funding - and, crucially, research through the English Tourism Council in to why holidaymakers aren't going to the seaside any more: and what might bring them back.

Sheila Kettlewell, chairman of Scarborough Borough Council's Tourism Committee, said the noises being made by the minister were encouraging - and the way forward for resorts such as Scarborough and Whitby was now clear.

"We need to get rid of the old-fashioned image of the seaside town and come up to date," she said.

"In Scarborough this week it's buzzing with mums and dads, each with two to three kids. But six busy weeks in Scarborough over the summer doesn't make for a healthy annual budget."

That means a change of emphasis: and if the Government's new initiative can help the Yorkshire seaside towns achieve that, so much the better.

In Scarborough, top priority is re-establishing the town as a conference venue.

The conference business, Coun Kettlewell says, is essential. Not only does it provide a source of income and employment all year round when tourism is quiet - it can also put the town on the map. Visitors who come for a conference and like the place may well bring their families back for a holiday.

So if lottery or European money were to be available, Coun Kettlewell says, the best use for it would be to refurbish the Spa conference centre.

"It's a beautiful building, and it's in a wonderful position: but it is archaic and simply not a conference building for the millennium," she said. "We need a modern, technologically up-to-date venue.

"The hotels are doing their bit. They've spent millions upgrading their facilities. Now we (the council) have got to do our bit."

Just turning the town into a conference venue won't be enough. In Scarborough and Whitby, there is a need, says Coun Kettlewell, to attract a different kind of holidaymaker.

That means offering a different kind of holiday. The towns are not going to be able to compete in the sun, sea and sand stakes with glamorous Florida or Mediterranean resorts. But they do have plenty to offer. Themed holidays - Captain Cook holidays, Dinosaur walk holidays, dance weeks for the elderly - may be the way forward.

"Twenty or thirty years ago, families were coming for weeks," Coun Kettlewell said. "Now we're not getting the people staying for a fortnight. They go abroad, then come here for the odd two or three days for a second holiday.

"We can't just sit back with our natural beauty any more and wait for the hordes to pour in. It's not going to happen. But if we look at themed holidays, more specialist holidays, while a fortnight in Scarborough may be unrealistic, a week in Scarborough, or five to eight days in Scarborough, may be possible."

For that to succeed, specific groups of holidaymakers need to be targeted. The launch later this month - with Ryedale and East Yorkshire - of a tourism website for the area should make that easier.

But even with these developments there is still a need to tackle run-down areas. That - just as with promoting the area as a conference destination - will require joint public and private funding.

Ambitious private-sector plans are already being laid for a massive £250 million Zenith leisure complex in Scarborough's North Bay, which could include shops, a holiday village, a ten-screen cinema plus nightclubs, restaurants, bars and family entertainment.

The borough council is keen to do something with the derelict open air pool in the town's south bay. Landscaping, seating and toddlers' paddling pools, perhaps, to bring the area - which, in Coun Kettlewell's own words, at the moment resembles Colditz - back to life.

That, of course, would require funding. But if the Government's promises this week are to prove more than just empty words, perhaps the future is not so bleak after all.

The soggy seaside fish and chips may be gone for good - but we just may end up with a Yorkshire coastline to be proud of for the new millennium.

PICTURE: When the replica of Captain Cook's Endeavour visited Whitby it attracted thousands of visitors