A COUNTY’S visitor profile is higher than ever before, but there is still some room for improvement, its outgoing tourism chief has said.

Melanie Sensicle was the first chief executive when Country Durham got its own tourism agency back in 2006 and has built the industry to be worth £738m a year, up from £599m; supporting 11,000 jobs and attracting 17 million visitors.

She helped deliver 2013’s Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition; the North-East’s first Ashes Test, in Chester-le-Street; the biennial Lumiere light festival; Durham’s summer Brass festivals and more.

But now Ms Sensicle is stepping aside, to run her own tourism, culture and marketing business based in Newcastle.

Reflecting on her time at Visit County Durham (VCD), she said: “There’s more of a feeling of ‘team Durham’ now. We’ve got a much more robust tourism industry.

“Our profile is higher than we’ve ever had. But we’ve still got some way to go.

“When I started out it was just starting to realise its potential. Now it is realising that. Durham is on many more people’s ‘must visit’ list.”

Looking ahead, she said there was “still a way to go” on keeping visitors in Durham for more than two hours and Durham’s tourism “product” must improve in “clustering and amount”.

But she pointed to the development of Auckland Castle, Durham Cathedral’s £10m Open Treasure project and the growth of Durham County Cricket Club as grounds for optimism.

Ms Sensicle said her main disappointment was Durham missing out on the inaugural UK City of Culture title in 2013.

The historic city failed to even make the shortlist, but Ms Sensicle said: “We couldn’t have done any better.

“And the legacy was Durham’s Year of Culture 2013.”

That attracted around 500,000 visitors and provided a multi-million pound boost to the economy.

Ms Sensicle also had to deal with the demise of regional development agency One North East, which she said was challenging, but praised Durham County Council’s attitude to tourism in its wake.

Ivor Stolliday, chairman of VCD, said Ms Sensicle had made a colossal contribution to the visitor economy and he was sorry to see her leave.

A successor will be announced in due course.