Why the world should visit Britain’s most underrated region

The figures are impressive: two World Heritage Sites, around 50 castles (give or take), England’s largest forest, Europe’s largest man-made body of water, the largest Gold Tier Dark Sky Park in Europe, a 40-mile-long (64k) coastal Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the world’s largest half-marathon, and, arguably, the UK’s most recognisable public artwork. And yet, and yet… North East England languishes at the bottom of the country’s league table for visitor numbers.

And by some margin. The number of overnight trips to the region taken by UK visitors in 2023 was 3.7m, around half the number of the next lowest region, the East Midlands (7.4m). The South West sailed ahead with 16.4m. The number of foreign visitors is similarly thin: a spindly 459,000 while all other regions, apart from Wales, range between 1.1m and 4.3m, with London 20.3m.

Perception could be to blame: it’s “oop north”, so it’s bound to be colder and greyer and tougher than the soft and sunny South West. (I’m from the north, so I can be blunt.) But the Lake District is also in the north (and is wetter) and yet the North West attracted 3.4m overseas tourists plus 13.9m overnighting Brits: more than four times as many.

Is it because it lacks a showpiece attraction? Those castles are pretty spectacular (Alnwick good enough to star as Harry Potter’s Hogwarts). Or are the views unimpressive? I’d direct you to Holy Island, shimmering offshore like a fairy-tale kingdom, the sweep of the North Pennines, Northumberland moorland from Hadrian’s Wall, or beaches that roll like airport runways into the distance, largely untroubled by people.

Maybe it’s something much simpler – it’s just not been shouty enough. “I don’t think the visitor economy has had the support it should have had,” admitted Duncan Peake, chair of Visit County Durham. “Too many people have seen it [tourism] as a Cinderella sector. It’s fragmented, so it doesn’t get the same profile.”

That is due to change if Destination North East England, a regional partnership focused on growing tourism, is to be believed. It has an ambition to double the size of the visitor economy by 2033 (of which more later).

From a wholly unscientific survey of visitors, hoteliers, and assorted attraction owners, there was disbelief that visitor numbers were so low. “We’ve not noticed it here,” observed Roger Davy, owner of The Beaumont hotel in Hexham, close to Hadrian’s Wall.

“Hexham is busier than pre-Covid. We’ve got the outdoors and we’ve got history – it’s a big attraction.”

“We wouldn’t have expected [the region] to be at the top, but we would have expected it to be higher up the league,” said Andy and Anita Sherwood, who were standing at the top of the Grand Cascade in Alnwick Garden waiting to snap photographs when the fountains next went into dramatic (and drenching) action.

Early retirees from Great Ayton in North Yorkshire, they were staying near Kielder Water, chosen mainly for its ‘Dark Sky’ status and its observatory. The couple were also celebrating a significant wedding anniversary and were “quite surprised to find not just one, but two Michelin-starred restaurants” in the vicinity.

Down in the Garden’s Pavilion Café, Terry and Linda Atkinson, from York, and regular holidaymakers to Amble on Northumberland’s coast, could have written the script for the region’s marketing campaign: “We love the North East! There’s so much variety – walks, beaches, castles, National Trust properties – you can fill a weekend very easily.” The Lake District, they pointed out, “is so busy. We stopped going. You don’t go to a ‘wilderness’ area to queue for a car park. Here you’ve got space.” So why haven’t others cottoned on to what the region has to offer? Terry mused for a while: “I don’t think it has the same cachet as other areas.”

True, the region is not a polished, shiny sort of place with flashy hotels (one of its weaknesses is a lack of quality, interesting accommodation). But it can be bold.

Beamish Open Air Museum was an entirely new concept in this country when it opened in 1970: a collection of vernacular houses, buildings and workplaces that showcased life (with costumed characters and touchable objects) in north-east England in the 19th and 20th centuries. Then there’s Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North – a towering, rusting figure on the southern edge of Gateshead. And Lilidorei, a children’s imaginative adventure play village (walnut-whip-topped hobbit-like houses, twisty slides hidden in a fantasy castle) adjacent to Alnwick Garden. After opening in May 2023, it attracted 180,000 visitors in its first year.

“The thing about the north east is that we’re not trying to copy other destinations,” explained Sonya Galloway, communications manager for the Vindolanda Trust, which runs the Roman Army Museum and Vindolanda archaeological site near Hadrian’s Wall. “The sense of place is apparent, so when people do come, they enjoy it because it is different.” But the sheer size of the region, she pointed out, means what’s on offer is more dispersed. On the one hand this has the benefit of offering escapism but, equally, “people can think there’s nothing there!”

No danger of that at seaside Bamburgh, whose imperious Norman castle rears from the landscape like a creature from the underworld. Add in the three-mile stretch of pinky-golden sands, and you can see why it regularly tops the polls of UK’s favourite seaside town. Even on a breezy Saturday in late September, there were four coaches in the village’s car park by 11am.

“It may feel like we’re very busy,” said Claire Watson-Armstrong, whose husband is the castle’s owner, “but if you go inland it is very quiet.” She feels the region needs to shout about itself more and “give people reasons to visit” so they don’t “bypass us on the way to Scotland”.

Raby Castle and estate in County Durham, the home of Lord and Lady Barnard, has updated its marketing strategy. “We’ve made a huge investment in videography,” explained Claire Jones, its head of Tourism and Leisure. “Working with influencers, we’re curating packages, then filming [them] so potential visitors can see that experience.”

Will these sorts of approaches work? Sarah Green, chief executive of ‘NewcastleGateshead Initiative’, the lead partner for Destination North East England, believes it’s both about “creating, rather than changing, a perception” as well as addressing the under-investment in the nuts and bolts (for example, two much-needed large and high-quality hotels in central Newcastle are scheduled to open next year).

The buzz words are “regenerative tourism” which, cutting through the waffle in the partnership’s framework document, seems to mean attracting more visitors while not upsetting the locals or the environment.

Ah, yes, overtourism. Frankly, I think the North East can handle that. One of its big attractions is that it doesn’t have the honeypot structure of other regions such as the Lake District and the Cotswolds. Bamburgh, admittedly, can get sticky with tourists on a hot summer’s day but it’s very localised.

Stroll along the beach 100 metres and what’s the problem? And it’s certainly not hostile. As I walked along the sands to jolly Seahouses, every single person, and dog, that I met exchanged a friendly greeting.

There is an infectious warmth and openness about north-eastern folk, and a gritty positivity. As Sonya Galloway said: “Our attitude up here is, ‘let’s get on with it’. Being bottom [of the league tables] I look at it as an opportunity to improve.”