2025 STEAM report

Blog posted:

20 July 2026

The latest annual STEAM results highlight the scale and importance of North Yorkshire's visitor economy. With more than 31 million visitors, almost 49 million visitor days and an economic impact of £4.3 billion, tourism continues to make a significant contribution to the county's businesses, communities and jobs.

An Info graphic showing the numbers described in the previous paragraph

North Yorkshire in numbers

North Yorkshire’s visitor economy generated £4.3 billion, up 1.9% vs. 2024*
North Yorkshire welcomed 31.2 million people (down 3% vs. 2024)
25m day visitors (down 5% vs. 2024), with 48.6 million visitor days recorded
6.2m total staying visitors, up 2.7% versus 2024
Average length of stay was 4 nights
Staying visitors generated £2.8bn of economic impact, an increase of 3.6% against 2024
The Visitor Economy supports 36,527 total Full Time Equivalent jobs

Download the 2025 report

Comments from Tony Watson, Head of Economy and Tourism at North Yorkshire Council:

These figures show that North Yorkshire’s visitor economy remains one of our great economic strengths. A £4.263bn impact and more than 36,000 full-time equivalent jobs supported is a major contribution to our places, businesses and communities.

Our focus is on building a visitor economy that is higher value, more sustainable and more resilient across the whole year. That means encouraging visitors to stay longer, spend more locally, explore more of North Yorkshire and support the businesses and communities that make the county such a distinctive place to visit.

The STEAM data supports the direction of North Yorkshire’s 10-year Destination Management Plan, which focuses on using better evidence, strengthening places, supporting people and businesses, developing the visitor offer and improving the county’s position and profile in key markets.

What is STEAM?

STEAM is the Tourism Economic Activity Monitor that we use to track visitor numbers, spend and economic impact for North Yorkshire.

STEAM quantifies the local economic impact of tourism, for both staying and day visitors, through the analysis of a variety of inputs including visitor attraction numbers, accommodation bed stock and occupancy levels, visitor expenditure levels and tourism-specific economic multipliers. Find out more on our Economic Monitoring page.