York's New York

In 2020, as the COVID Pandemic put global travel and tourism to a halt, some destinations made use of the time “home alone” to engage in deeper conversations around tourism, the return of tourism and how to "build back better" and ensure a future visitor economy designed to create value for city and community far beyond metrics of growth in visitor numbers and spending. In the City of York, this raised a new question: What kind of tourism does York actually want in the future?

This was the starting point when Make it York (MIY) invited Group NAO to help rethink York’s tourism model after the pandemic. Rather than producing yet another growth strategy, NAO’s work became a reflection on values and purpose, exploring how to "build back better" with tourism as a positive contributor post-pandemic.

The end delivery was a reflection paper to initiate a new conversation on the potential role and purpose of tourism in York. Based on stakeholder interviews, the process was also a probe for shared definitions of what “better tourism” might look like and what that would entail and require. The process uncovered that stakeholders were looking 1) for tourism and culture to take more leadership on sustainability, 2) to develop tourism for stronger diversity and inclusion within the city, 3) to rebalance the city's vibrancy with better tourism, and 4) to put locals at the heart of the conversation on the future of tourism. Since its publication, Y Tourism has inspired Make it York's leadership role, informing strategies like York's Creative Future and Our City Centre York.