Theatregoers take tourist trail to Yorkshire
Published: 4 January 2011
As The Railway Children stage play faces its final curtain at the Welcome to Yorkshire theatre in London its legacy will be felt closer to home with an anticipated increase in visitors.
After a six month run at London Waterloo's redundant Eurostar station the critically acclaimed production, which is thought to have been the most successful debut play in London outside of the West End, faced its final curtain on 2nd January.
It will have been seen by over 165,000 people during that time and research among attendees reveals that 20% of those questioned said they are very likely to visit Yorkshire as a result of seeing the show.
Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: "The play has been a great Yorkshire export! Yorkshire has been high profile across the capital for six months now, at the forefront of every theatre-goer's mind and every commuter who uses London Waterloo station. The upshot of that is we have seen increased numbers of visitors coming to Yorkshire this summer and an indication that more will follow. That is fantastic news for the county!"
The play, which was originally a York Theatre Royal production at the National Railway Museum, moved to London Waterloo in the summer with the support of Welcome to Yorkshire. Yorkshire is an integral part of the iconic film which was shot at the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway 40 years ago.
David Petyt, a board member at Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, said the play had helped boost passenger numbers at the railway, which were up 7% from April to October.
"I am in no doubt that our increase in passenger numbers for the middle part of this year had been as a result, in part, to the Railway Children's high profile in London and the work that Welcome to Yorkshire has done promoting the performance. However, I think we will see the full impact of the show's run in next year's visitor and passenger numbers, which we are quietly confident about."
The locomotives which were featured in the production, on loan from the National Railway Museum and Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, will be on show again next year back in Yorkshire.
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Editors' Notes:
- Welcome to Yorkshire is the official tourism agency for Yorkshire, working to grow the county's visitor economy.
- Welcome to Yorkshire is funded by Yorkshire Forward, the Regional Development Agency charged with improving the Yorkshire and Humber economy.
- Key facts include:
- Tourism in Yorkshire is worth £7 billion annually
- The county's industry employs almost a quarter of a million people
- There are 209 million visits to Yorkshire each year
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