New statistics have revealed that the number of tourists who have been residing in Cambridge have shot to over 30,000 in two years.
Figures from Visit Britain indicate that the number of travellers arriving in this city for staying have increased from 404,000 in the year 2013 to 430,000 in 2015. The data is based on an International Passenger Survey, Office for National Statistics. And, the data has ranked Cambridge in the 10th position in the top 20 towns for inbound tourists to Britain in 2015.
Oxford, on the other hand ranked seventh with 535,000.
London, however, was on the top place securing 18,851,000. And, Manchester, Glasgow and Birmingham featured in the leading 10 destinations. Emma Thornton, the chief executive of Visit Cambridge and Beyond that had been established a year earlier to support tourism, feel that the figures are really optimistic.
She said that their vision was to portray Cambridge and the surrounding locality as a first class business destination as well as a leisure destination.
One of the key objectives of this region is altering the perception of the tourists who feel that Cambridge is merely a day trip destination. Thornton added that Cambridge continues to enjoy a high amount of visitors who end up staying just for a single day in this region.
However, the current statistics actually prove that there are several people who are preferring to prolong their stay in the area and therefore they are not just day visitors, that is truly an encouraging news. She went on to say that they would like to motivate people to stay over in this part of the world and keep exploring further.
She simply feels that people should see Cambridge en route to some other place they might be heading towards, be it Durham or Oxford.
Emma Thornton believed that since Cambridge is based at a close proximity to London, it might be more beneficial for the former.
At the same time, this fact might even prove to be a challenge since there are four trains an hour. This creates the perception among tourists that Cambridge might be utilized simply as a place where one can spend a few hours or just a day. The tourism sector of Cambridge must change this perception, she feels.
The latest statistics provided by Beyond and Visit Cambridge portray that the total number of visitors who visit Cambridge is nearly 5.3 million every year.
On 24th July last year, Cambridge had registered a footfall of about 140,947, as per the data released by Cambridge BID.
As had been previously reported, the figure marked a rise of over 10,000 from a few weeks earlier on 2nd July that had witnessed a footfall of 128,387.
The footfall o 16th July was 147,315.
