The John Griff Column: Take a tourist’s tour to see what’s on your doorstep

Ask the marketeers of the sector and they will readily reel off a ton of statistics about foot flow, dwell times, family unit interactions, share of pound and more. All of this is good, if not essential to know if you are an operator of one of the many visitor economy destinations, heritage venues, bars, restaurants, hotels, B&Bs, bus companies and other participants in an industry which sought to fill the almost 3.5 million jobs and £106 billion generated in 2023. Still recovering in a changed market from the times of the Covid pandemic, tourism is generally accepted by the economists as being vital to the country’s economy. Without becoming a numbers driven fact-fest here, it keeps lots of people in work, positions the country and its heritage both nationally and internationally – and contributes hugely to the exchequer. The service sector of which the visitor economy is a significant part, dominates the economy – and long ago overtook the heavy industry eras of ship building, mining and car manufacture.

What does this mean for Northampton and the wider county? As it turns out, quite a lot. Almost to the day a year ago, West and North Northamptonshire councils jointly launched a new, cross-county tourism strategy. Official statistics showed that the county sees more than 18 million visits annually – in turn they contribute almost £1 billion in revenue and underpin more than 30,000 jobs and 3,000 local businesses – some of which might not otherwise be associated directly with tourism, but which nevertheless feed into it. To some we are a nation of small businesses, but collectively small business is big business. There’s a lot to play for – and not just from the outside.

If I asked you to list the tourism destinations that exist in Northamptonshire, how long would your list be and what would it include, based exclusively on places you’d been to visit yourself? Would it be a long list? How about the list of places here that you know about and plan to visit over 12 months? What about list of all places here you know of whether you’ve visited yourself, intend to visit, or have no plans to visit? Would that be the longest list of the three? No surprises there, then.

I’ve tried the exercise myself and, of course, found the same. We all have a limited amount of time and money available and there are many aspiring activities which compete for both commodities. There’s always the ‘do it tomorrow/do it another time’ argument too. Despite what might be the best of intentions we tend to get seduced by the delights of attractions further afield, reasoning that with our own attractions sitting on our doorsteps we can take them in any time. It’s an argument, but one that gets shot down if the business fails from a lack of support. Darwinism says that the best pivot to survive but failure rates for small businesses are notoriously high and particularly so for new ones trying to establish themselves. Benign neglect is a real issue and hurts the economy. Don’t put off for another day what you could be doing today…

If we don’t visit though, why is that – and why should others? It’s the same challenge for the business owners, unitary bodies and event planners, many of whom are gearing up for warmer times when we might come out to play. Flip the perspective and it becomes a huge opportunity to be grasped. If you think that tourism has only a small part to play in our local economy, get out, take in some of the delights (not just the bigger, better known ones) and think again. Some point to Silverstone as though it’s the only tourism destination we have – which just wrong. It’s a major player, of course, and one I take in myself multiple times each year. But there’s enough on offer to be able to do something every day of the year and still barely scratch the surface of what’s available.

Use it, don’t lose it. Be a tourist at home and celebrate what’s right here, right now.