VISITOR numbers are on the increase in Skipton at a time when the Yorkshire Dales National Park has also seen a steep rise in tourism.

Footfall in Skipton is up by about six percent on 2016 and visitor numbers to the Yorkshire Dales National Park rose by 4.3 percent on 2015 to 2016

Skipton town council chief officer, Dave Parker said the town council had been operating footfall counters in the town centre for just over a year in partnership with the town's BID organisation and Craven district council.

"We've started to get comparison data with 2016. The year to date headline figures show that footfall in Skipton is up on last year by around six percent - although we only have a couple of months of comparative data.

"The counters also allow us to look at the impact of various events and festivals on overall footfall in the town centre.

"We know the Christmas markets bring around 20,000 people into the town centre - compared to around 4,000 for a regular Sunday.

"Sheep day brought in around 18,000 earlier in the year and the car show topped 20,000. Skipton compares well with other towns and is generally performing better than other market towns."

Visitor numbers to the Yorkshire Dales National Park were up by 4.3 percent from 2015 to 2016 and the economic impact of tourism has risen consistently between 2009 and 2016. A comparison between 2016 to 2012 reveals an increase of 15.9 percent.

The Park is working in partnership with Visit England, Visit Britain, the other English national parks and the Destination Management Organisations on a ‘Discover England fund’ project.

A park spokesperson said: "This aims to work with local businesses in the Dales and the overseas travel trade and create compelling world-class visitor experiences within the national parks.

"This will support the aspirations of the government’s eight-point plan for national parks - 2016-2020 - which sets out to promote national parks as world-class destinations for visitors

"We hope that this together with the work being carried out by the Yorkshire Dales authority to encourage visitors to come back for another visit outside the traditional tourist season will be a boost for the dales tourism economy.

"Some of the projects we have developed to assist with this includes the Dark Skies festival in February half term and in September this year we had our first Cheese Festival."

VisitBritain has seen a record year-to-date for inbound tourism to the UK, with growth set to continue in 2018.

Overseas visits to the UK are forecast to break through the 40 million mark for the first time in 2018, reaching 41.7 million, up 4.4 percent on 2017.

Spending by overseas visitors to the UK is forecast to reach £26.9 billion in 2018, up 6.8 percent on 2017 which is expected to total £25.1 billion by year end.

VisitBritain Director, Patricia Yates said: “It is also a fiercely competitive global industry and these results not only demonstrate Britain’s continued ability to compete internationally for visitors, they are testament to tourism’s importance as a driver of economic growth."

VisitBritain promotes the UK internationally as a visitor destination as part of the UK Government’s global GREAT Britain campaign.

The UK was ranked third for tourism globally in the 2017 Anholt-GfK Nation Brands Index (NBI), equalling its highest rank ever and up two places from last year. When considering its overall brand, the UK ranked third out of 50 nations, a position it has held since 2011.

Tourism is worth £127 billion to the UK economy, creating jobs and boosting economic growth across its nations and regions.