Yorkshire tourism capitalising on the county’s Olympic success

Tourism bosses in Yorkshire are capitalising on the county’s Olympic success with a new map guiding visitors around ‘God’s own country’ via the home towns of its gold medal-winning athletes.

Nicola Adams – born and brought up in Leeds – was the latest champion to add another gold to Yorkshire’s tally after her historic triumph in the boxing ring yesterday, bringing the total to six.

On Wednesday, the tourism agency Welcome to Yorkshire published an online map to guide tourists around the county, which could be produced in print after the event.

The guide – recently updated – pinpoints all 43 of the county’s finest athletes and includes a profile on each.

It also features the locations of five golden postboxes, painted in honour of gold medal winners Jessica Ennis, Alistair Brownlee, Ed Clancy, Katherine Copeland and Andy Triggs Hodge from as far south as Sheffield and as far north as Stokesley.

Royal Mail is painting some of its iconic red post boxes gold to celebrate every Team GB and ParalympicsGB gold medal won. The post boxes are located in the home towns of the gold medallists where possible.

Yorkshire tourism chiefs decided to design their guide following demand on social networking sites, including Twitter, to know more about the region’s contenders.

Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: ‘Yorkshire’s success at the Olympics has really put the county on the map globally.

‘Nicola Adams wrote a new chapter in global sporting history and is a fiercely proud Leeds lass who’s a real people’s champion. We always knew she would be a world beater and fantastic ambassador for our county.’

He added: ‘We are a true sporting county, our landscape lends itself to a life outdoors and so we fully expect people inspired by the achievements of our brilliant athletes to come to the county that has competed like a country in London.’

Page views on www.yorkshire.com had also spiked in the last 48 hours, soaring 40 per cent since the map was launched.

Immediately after Adams’s triumph, the total would have put Yorkshire 12th on the table – just behind international sporting powerhouse Australia.

The position was ahead of South Africa, Japan, Spain and Brazil.
Welcome to Yorkshire also devised its own medals table based on population to prove the White Rose county has plenty to be proud of.

As of this morning, if Yorkshire was a country, it would be second in the medals table based on population.

All northern eyes will today turn to taekwondo to see whether Doncaster’s Sarah Stevenson can win Yorkshire another gold.
Hull boxer Luke Campbell will also fight in the bantamweight semi-final. If he wins, it could pave the way to East Yorkshire’s first gold on Saturday.

The news comes as figures showed that the UK welcomed an increased number of overseas visitors in the first six months of this year.

Foreign residents made 14.75 million trips to the UK in January to June 2012 – a 2 per cent rise on the total for the first half of last year, the Office for National Statistics said.

The figures are a welcome boost for UK tourism, with totals for the second half of the year likely to be swelled by the Olympics.

It was also confirmed today that the African hospitality centre for the Olympics has closed.

Africa Village, in Kensington Gardens, west London, was hosting regular music concerts and African medallists were visiting to share their triumphs with fans.