Cambridge visitors spend less here than in two other ancient English cities

Visitors to Cambridge spend less here than those who visit York or Norwich, it has been revealed. York has been named the UK’s top city for attracting tourist spending.

More than one out of every three pounds spent in the old Viking capital is by someone visiting the city, according to the Centre for Cities’ analysis of visitors’ contribution to local economies in the UK’s 63 largest cities and towns. That’s a higher proportion than any urban area in the United Kingdom.

Some 35.6% of all spending in York comes from visitors. Its medieval streets, such as the Shambles, provide a magical backdrop for people to visit attractions such as York Minster, Clifford’s Tower, Jorvik Viking Centre, and the National Rail Museum.

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Almost a quarter (23.4%) is from day visits, which is comfortably more than other ancient cities such as Norwich (15.4%) and Cambridge (13.3%). A further 12.2% comes from visitors staying overnight, though that’s only the second-highest rate in the country. When it comes to people staying overnight, nowhere beats Blackpool.

Some 12.8% of spending in the seaside town comes from people staying overnight. That puts it ahead of York (12.2%), Edinburgh (9.4%) and Brighton (6.6%).

The “Vegas of the North” doesn’t do as well at getting money from daytrippers though. Just 9.2% of spending in Blackpool comes from people just in town for the day. That’s similar to Reading (9.7%) and Sheffield (9.1%).

Andrew Carter, Chief Executive of Centre for Cities, said: “It’s hard to imagine Edinburgh without its unique restaurants and cafes or Blackpool without its Pleasure Beach. The extra revenues that visitors bring in makes life in these places richer, livelier and more enjoyable for residents too, by sustaining a wider variety of local amenities than they could do on their own.

“In raw numbers, there are only a few places where visitors taking a city break make up a considerable share of total spending. For these places, the next step is to understand the potential to tap into demand for overnight stays so that they can encourage people to spend more while only making one journey.

“While the desire to build stronger visitor economies in other places is understandable, they must balance the resources required to do this against dealing with other challenges their economies face.”