Hull and East Yorkshire has a population of over 550,000 people with P&O North Sea Ferries carrying nearly one million passengers per year and Humberside airport servicing over 500,000 passengers per year, visitors to the area currently generates around 350,000 over night stays per year in the Hull area.

Hull and the Humber ports form the largest complex in the UK, the second busiest in Europe.

Tourism is now Hull’s fastest growing industry. In the last ten years the value of tourism to the city has more than quadrupled and is now worth in excess of 250 million pounds per year and climbing.

Hull welcomes over 6,000,000 visitors a year, around a quarter from overseas. The rapid growth in demand for business and leisure hotel accommodation is outstripping supply across the board and is projected to grow. For those hotels that are already here, business is booming.

At peak times of the week, the current leading hotels in Hull City Centre are constantly full and turning away business. It is estimated that there are 13,000 room nights per year going out of the city centre due to lack of appropriate capacity.

Some of the larger companies BP, BBC, Smith & Nephew, Reckits and P&O are booking around 4,500 rooms per year.

Quite a few local companies stated they were dissatisfied by the quality of the present hotels and considered they were poor value for money.

The first World Trade Centre in the north of England, (Only the second licensed in Britain), is planned to be located in Hull. This prestigious opportunity places Hull amongst the World’s top locations for international business.

The average rack rate for a double room in a three star Hull city centre hotel is £105.00 per night midweek and £95.00 per night at the weekend. Boutique hotels, like The Institute, are generally able to charge more than large branded hotels due to their high quality of room facilities and smaller number of rooms.

York, one of the UK's premier visitor destinations

Visitors to historic York enjoy many varied and some world famous attractions, good accommodation, a growing cultural festival, and constantly developing retail, cafe and restaurant facilities

This is all enhanced by one of Europe's finest heritage environments that reflects 2000 years of hidtory in a compact city centre

In today's modern world, tourism, like everything else cannot stand still, as visitor taste changes and the competitive market for leisure time and the leisure pound increases rapidly

The city has received 3.84 million visitors spending in the region of £311.8 million in 2005 and predicts increases and growth over the next years. Market research shows that tourism contributed £4.2 billion to economy of the Yorkshire and Humber region

Our own market research indicates substantial growth in the competitive hotels within the city. York is a major tourist destination and as a result has a high weekend occupancy which is now supported by increased mid-week commercial demand for accommodation and conference and meeting facilities

The Guardian states "York had the third highest room rates in England" (27/03/07)