The Impact of Tourism
STEAM
STEAM (Scarborough Tourism Economic Activity Monitor) is a tourism economic impact modelling process which approaches the measurement of tourism from the bottom up, through its use of local supply side data and tourism performance and visitor survey data collection.
STEAM quantifies the local economic impact of tourism, from both staying and day visitors, through analysis and use of a variety of inputs including visitor attraction numbers, tourist accommodation bed stock, events attendance, occupancy levels, accommodation tariffs, macroeconomic factors, visitor expenditure levels, transport use levels and tourism-specific economic multipliers.
At the start of each year, we work with Global Tourism Solutions to gather the required data which includes a survey to collect monthly visitor figures from our attractions. Your input into this is invaluable.
Due to the volume and complexity of data used to compile our annual STEAM report, new reports are received between May and June of the following year.
2025 STEAM Headlines:
- 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
2025 town level data for Filey, Harrogate, Northallerton, Ripon, Scarborough, Selby, Settle, Skipton and Whitby is available upon request; please contact us at biz@visitnorthyorkshire.com.
*In historic prices, not adjusted for inflation
North Yorkshire Tourism Intelligence Report
To keep a regular snapshot of how North Yorkshire's tourism sector is performing, we collect monthly data including:
- Hotel and Airbnb occupancy
- Average room rates
- Average revenue rates
- Visits to big and small attractions
- Tourist Information Centre footfall
Not only does this vital market intelligence track the health of tourism in the county and provide a timely snapshot of performance of the sector, but it helps you, as a partner of Visit North Yorkshire, to benchmark your own business performance.
Quarterly reports consist of data from the following sources:
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STR
STR (Smith Travel Research) is a benchmarking tool that provides accommodation performance insight including occupancy and revenue per available room.
We use STR to monitor the progress of our target to increase overnight visitors to North Yorkshire.
By analysing this data on a monthly basis, we can compare occupancy and revenue per available room to previous years and better understand visitor trends.
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T-Stats
T-Stats is a platform that pulls together data from accommodation bookings, attractions, events, weather feeds, and much more.
We use T-Stats to analyse and benchmark self-catering data and attractions data.
Monthly data is also available to all Visit North Yorkshire partners via the T-Stats platform - Read our T-stats guide.