A £2million fundraising campaign has been launched to restore a top tourist attraction, which is set to remain closed for another year after being deluged by floods.

The York Archaeological Trust said it would promote Campaign Canute around the world in a bid to fund reopening an improved Jorvik Viking Centre in the city for its 400,000 annual visitors from next February.

The museum's bosses, which was the fifth most visited paid attraction in Yorkshire and the North-East in 2014, said they hope to lessen the impact of its first closure since opening 32 years ago on the tourist economy by staging three exhibitions to celebrate York's Norse heritage.

They are also focussing on promoting the 32nd Jorvik Viking Festival, which is due to start on Monday and will feature a parade of hundreds of Vikings through the city's streets, battle re-enactments, a banquet and a best beard contest.

Director of attractions Sarah Maltby said: "We know how important Jorvik and the Vikings are to the city, which is why we’re continuing to host Europe’s largest Viking festival, and hopefully welcome another 40,000 people into the city, particularly as York’s experienced a very quiet January."

“We are delighted to be partnering with the York Theatre Royal and in talks with two other central venues to host three Viking exhibitions, the first of which will open in April and the other two in time for the summer."

Staff at the museum worked a 24-hour shift on December 27 to protect the attraction as the city's rivers rose, but were left devastated when the underground ride through Viking York was left under half a metre of contaminated water.

While all the centre's historic artefacts, including 9th century bowls and tools, were saved, tourism bosses said bookings in the city dropped in January by up to 40 per cent.

The trust's chief executive David Jennings said: “Whilst we could simply replicate the pre-flood displays, our mission to educate in an accessible way drives us to plan how we can do it even better than before – and to do this, we will need to raise a significant sum of money.

“Whilst this is an ambitious plan for an independent charity, we have 18 million ambassadors for the Jorvik experience, and the high-profile nature of the flooding means people around the world are aware of our plight.”

Donations can be made at jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk and details about the Viking Festival are available at jorvik-viking-festival.co.uk