City 'badly needs a five-star hotel'

7:59am Saturday 10th May 2008

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THE absence of a five-star hotel in York is discouraging top-end conference organisations from coming to the city, it has been revealed at the launch of a new tourism body.

Speaking to a packed conference centre at the Royal York Hotel, Gillian Cruddas, chief executive of Visit York (VY) - which celebrated its official business launch at the venue yesterday - said the city could not currently cater for the top end of the conference industry.

Ms Cruddas said: "There are conference organisations at the moment who won't come here because we haven't got the five-star hotel."

The launch of VY - which senior city officials hope will provide a strategic direction that will "take tourism in York to the next paradigm of success" - saw a panel of four tourism "stake-holders" answer questions on the subject from the audience. In his response to the question of what the panel felt was the need for the planned increase of more than 250 bedrooms in York over the next two years, Bill Woolley, director of city strategy at City of York Council, said: "It's generally accepted that York needs a better range of hotels - particularly at the top end."

City of York MP Hugh Bayley asked the panel if York should seek to be designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and what such a site's boundaries would be.

Mr Woolley said the status could be a very good thing for York because it "carried a message worldwide."