A Skipton-based holiday cottage company is gearing up for 2014 on the back of the world’s largest sporting event.

Holiday Cottages Yorkshire, in Water Street, is anticipating a high demand because of the number of visitors expected in July for the Grand Depart of the Tour de France.

Tom Ellis, company director, said he thought the Tour impact would be seen across the whole holiday sector, particularly in self-catering.

He said: “I fully expect there to be a rise in bookings. It is absolutely fantastic for the region to be hosting an event of this magnitude and we are confident it will have a positive effect on the self-catering holiday sector.

“We have already seen an increase in sales around the time of the race next year and hope this trend will continue.”

The region and holiday sector was also given a boost with Lonely Planet declaring Yorkshire in the top three regions in the world to visit in 2014.

Mr Ellis said he hoped increased interest in the region would attract new home owners to register their properties.

“We are always open to new homeowners letting their properties with us.”