Carlisle and tourists

Carlisle should do more to

attract tourists, says John

MARCH 26 2009

CARLISLE should be making greater efforts to capitalise on the UK tourism boom which is expected in the wake of the recession.

That’s the view of John Stevenson, the city’s Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate.

John is urging the city’s business leaders to put out the welcome mat for the thousands of tourists who, for the first time in years, are expected to be spending their summer holidays in Britain instead of abroad.

He is also calling on tourism bosses to promote Carlisle just as strongly as they campaign for the Lake District and that means Prime Minister Gordon Brown visiting the city during the Lake District holiday he was invited to take this week, he says, so much the better!

Visit Britain, the national tourism body, believes that, as the pound continues to fall against both the Euro and the US dollar, about five million Britons who usually go abroad are likely to consider taking a domestic holiday instead.

It says an extra 150,000 people could give Cumbria’s tourism industry a multi-million pound injection as they choose the county as their holiday destination.

This led to Ian Stephens, chief executive at Cumbria Tourism, writing to Mr Brown this week, inviting him to take a holiday in the Lake District this year.

John Stevenson has already spent several days going around Carlisle, looking at the city with a tourist’s eyes – to see just how much it has to offer visitors.

It has convinced him that the city has huge untapped potential as a tourist destination.

“Carlisle has got much more going for it than most people realise,” he says. “It is a very interesting, very old and very compact city – all of which makes it very user friendly.

“There are lots of interesting places to go, and they are all in easy reach of each other. Anyone spending a week in the Lake District should certainly spend some time here.

“The only problem is that we don’t sell ourselves well enough. Many tourists visiting the Lake District don’t even think of coming here too. This year looks like presenting us with a golden opportunity to change that.”