CITY of York Council chief executive Kersten England is to be a keynote speaker at an international heritage conference in Zhouzhuang, China, next month.

The British Council funded trip will be an opportunity for York to raise its international profile at the China-UK Cultural Heritage event.

Ms England has been asked to speak about the way in which York balances the needs of the local community and tourism, and how York, being one of the UK’s major tourist destinations, approaches tourism.

She said that while the visit was an ideal opportunity to compare and contrast culture and heritage and learn from best practice from across the world, she was also going to use it as an opportunity to meet universities and businesses to raise York’s international profile.

She said: “Across Yorkshire we have the second highest concentration of Chinese students and are looking to build on this.”