IT'S official - the tourist capital of the North has been crowned the best city to visit in Europe.

York has been named as the Best European Tourism City - beating other finalists Gothenburg and Valencia to take the title.

Launched by European Cities Marketing, the first ever European Cities Tourism Awards were attended by more than 400 tourism professionals at a gala dinner in Athens.

The new scheme aims to celebrate world-class performance and to provide a benchmark for best practice among Europe's tourism cities and tourism organisations.

The judges were looking for cities that demonstrated a strong customer focus in all their activities, sustainable tourism development and performance based on economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

The chief executive of the York Tourism Bureau, Gillian Cruddas, said: "It is a huge endorsement for everyone involved in tourism in York. If an independent panel of judges has voted York best city destination in Europe we must be doing something right.

"This award will enable us to market ourselves even more strongly and is certain to help increase visitor numbers from Europe and beyond."

The panel of judges was chaired by Paul Dubrule, co-founder of the Accor Group and chairman of Maison de la France, who said: "York has unique characteristics, such as its 2,000 years of history, a variety of world-class attractions, distinctive shopping and festivals and events - all of which make it a destination well worth visiting, and on a year-round basis too."

Mr Dubrule added: "This is a powerful example of a highly successful private-public sector partnership.

"The public sector has invested wisely in innovative and imaginative infrastructure projects and this in turn has helped stimulate substantial private sector investment because developers are confident they will see a good return."

Over the past ten years, York has achieved a 52 per cent growth in visitor spending, a 26 per cent increase in overnight stays, a 21.5 per cent rise in average length of stay and 12 per cent more employment in tourism.

The city's tourism manager, Ian Tempest, said the award showed the value of the work so many had put into the industry locally. "Tourism is a great success story for York - we're delighted the city has won this prestigious award," he said.