York’s visitor economy combines a large day-visitor market with a smaller but more valuable staying market. The 2024 York Visitor Profile Report recorded 9 million visitors in 2023, while the 2025 York Visitor Profile Report describes how a survey sample traveled, stayed, spent money and experienced the city.
Contents
- Survey size and visitor mix
- How visitors reach York
- Repeat visits and accommodation
- What visitors do in York
- Attraction visits
- Visitor spending
- Origins and satisfaction
Survey size and visitor mix
The 2024 York Visitor Survey included 1,048 interviews. Its sample consisted of 466 day visitors and 582 staying visitors. In percentage terms, staying visitors represented 56% of the survey sample and day visitors 44%. These are survey-profile figures, not a count of every visitor to York.
The same 2024 York Visitor Profile Report estimated York’s 2023 visitor volume at 9 million visitors. Staying visitors represented 19% of those visitors, but they accounted for 44% of all visitor days. This difference indicates how overnight trips can contribute a larger share of time spent in the city than their share of individual visitor arrivals.
The 2024 survey interviews were distributed across recognizable visitor locations. The National Railway Museum accounted for 21% of respondents, York Minster for 17%, and The Shambles / King’s Square for 14%. Parliament Street / Shambles Market accounted for 12%, St. Helen’s Square for 9%, and Coppergate / JORVIK Viking Centre for 7%.
The remaining 2024 interview locations included Castle Museum at 7%, Yorkshire Museum / Museum Gardens at 5%, Bar Walls at 4%, York Visitor Information Centre at 2%, and The York Dungeon at 2%. These percentages describe where interviews were conducted in the survey rather than the relative popularity of the sites.
The 2025 York Visitor Survey included 1,006 interviews: 401 day visitors and 605 staying visitors. The two reports therefore provide separate survey snapshots, with different interview totals and sample splits. Percentages from one survey should not be treated as a direct year-on-year change unless the reports define the samples and methods as comparable.
How visitors reach York
The 2025 York Visitor Profile Report presents more than one transport view. In one set of reported figures, 67% of visitors traveled by car, van, motorhome or motorbike, 31% traveled by train, 23% used Park and Ride, 19% traveled by airplane, 2% used a public bus or coach service, and 1% traveled by ferry. These categories can describe different stages or modes of a journey, so they should not be added as if they were mutually exclusive.
A separate all-visitors transport profile chart in the same 2025 report recorded 77% using a car, van, motorhome or motorbike to get to York and 18% using a train. The chart and the broader reported transport figures should be kept distinct because they are presented as different views of the transport profile.
The figures show that road travel was prominent in the 2025 visitor profile, while rail was also a substantial part of the journey mix. Park and Ride appeared at 23% in the reported transport figures, linking visitor travel behavior with an important way of reaching the city centre without driving all the way into it.
Repeat visits and accommodation
York’s 2025 survey audience was strongly familiar with the city. Overall, 83% of visitors were repeat visitors. The repeat-visitor share was 95% among day visitors and 76% among staying visitors. Domestic visitors recorded a repeat-visitor share of 96%, compared with 52% for overseas visitors.
Repeat visitors had made an average of 2.2 trips in the previous 12 months. This average applies to repeat visitors in the 2025 survey and should not be interpreted as the average number of trips made by every visitor in the sample.
Among 2025 staying visitors, 85% had booked accommodation in advance. Hotels were the leading accommodation type at 66%. Self-catering accommodation accounted for 18%, while B&B, guesthouse, inn or pub accommodation accounted for 7%.
Smaller accommodation categories included staying with friends or relatives at 6%, caravan, campsite or motorhome accommodation at 1%, group accommodation or hostel at 1%, and other free accommodation such as a second home at 1%.
| 2025 staying-visitor measure | Share |
|---|---|
| Booked accommodation in advance | 85% |
| Hotel | 66% |
| Self-catering | 18% |
| B&B, guesthouse, inn or pub | 7% |
| Friends or relatives | 6% |
The accommodation figures describe the staying-visitor subgroup, not all visitors to York. They also show why the distinction between day and staying visitors matters when interpreting visitor-economy data.
What visitors do in York
The most widespread reported activity in 2025 was simply strolling around and enjoying York’s ambience, recorded for 95% of visitors. Eating or drinking in a café, bar or restaurant before 5 pm was reported by 93%, while 66% ate or drank in a café, bar or restaurant after 5 pm.
Regular shopping was reported by 83% of visitors. Museums and attractions were visited by 82%, and 64% shopped in a market such as Shambles or another themed market. Smaller activity shares included visiting friends or relatives at 7% and attending a festival or event at 6%.
These measures overlap: a visitor could walk around, eat out, shop and visit an attraction during the same trip. The percentages therefore describe the reach of individual activities, not exclusive visitor segments.
Attraction visits
The Shambles was the most visited named attraction or place in the 2025 survey, visited by 72% of visitors. The National Railway Museum followed at 58%, and York Minster at 41%. Walking the city wall was reported by 40%.
York Castle Museum was visited by 19% of visitors, while the Jorvik Viking Centre attracted 13%. Yorkshire Museum was recorded at 11%, and Clifford’s Tower at 10%.
York Dungeon was visited by 8% of visitors, York’s Chocolate Story by 6%. These figures describe whether surveyed visitors had visited each named place; they are not ticket-sales totals or annual admissions counts.
| Place or experience | Share of 2025 visitors |
|---|---|
| The Shambles | 72% |
| National Railway Museum | 58% |
| York Minster | 41% |
| City wall | 40% |
| York Castle Museum | 19% |
| Jorvik Viking Centre | 13% |
| Yorkshire Museum | 11% |
| Clifford’s Tower | 10% |
| York Dungeon | 8% |
| York’s Chocolate Story | 6% |
The pattern combines broad city experiences with individual paid or curated attractions. The Shambles and city wall figures represent prominent ways of experiencing York itself, while the museum and attraction figures identify the proportion who visited particular venues.
Visitor spending
Average spending in York was £54 per person per day in 2025, according to the 2025 York Visitor Profile Report. Day visitors spent £40 per person per day, while staying visitors spent £64 per person per day.
The domestic-visitor average was £54 per person per day and the overseas-visitor average was £55. These averages are close, whereas the day-versus-staying figures show a wider difference. The staying-visitor figure covers a visitor category that remains in York overnight; it should not be read as the total cost of an entire holiday beyond the stated per-person, per-day measure.
| Visitor group | Average spend per person per day |
|---|---|
| All visitors | £54 |
| Day visitors | £40 |
| Staying visitors | £64 |
| Domestic visitors | £54 |
| Overseas visitors | £55 |
The spending data is most useful when read alongside visitor mix. Staying visitors were 19% of York’s 2023 visitors in the 2024 report but contributed 44% of visitor days, while the 2025 survey recorded higher daily spending for staying visitors than for day visitors. The reports do not provide enough information here to calculate total visitor expenditure, so no total is inferred.
Origins and satisfaction
The 2025 region profile recorded 21% of visitors as overseas visitors. Among domestic regions, 15% came from the South East including London, 9% from the North West, 8% from the West Midlands, 7% from the South West, 6% from the East Midlands, 5% from the North East, 4% from Scotland and 3% from Wales. Yorkshire and the Humber was listed at 20% in the all-visitors region chart.
The overseas respondent counts recorded in the 2025 survey included 67 visitors from the USA, 17 from Canada, 15 from Australia, 9 from Germany, 8 from Spain, 8 from the Netherlands, 8 from France, 7 from Belgium, 8 from New Zealand and 4 from Italy. These are respondent counts, not estimates of the number of visitors arriving from each country.
Visitor evaluations were highly positive. In 2025, 93% rated their overall experience of York as very good or good, with an average overall experience score of 4.5 out of 5. The average likelihood-to-return score was 4.2 out of 5, and 56% were very or quite likely to return in the next two years.
Recommendation intent was higher: 99% of 2025 visitors were very or quite likely to recommend York. Taken together, the reported measures show strong satisfaction and advocacy, while the lower return-likelihood share is a separate question and should not be substituted for the recommendation result.