MORE and more holidaymakers are pouring into the tourism capital of the north - providing a huge boost for the city's economy.

Latest figures show the annual tourism spend in York was the highest ever - taking it up to 333m.

That is 21m up on the year before, which itself was a record for the city which now has a total of 9,970 tourism-related jobs.

The annual survey, published by the city's university, was commissioned by the City of York Council and is used by the local Tourism Bureau to assess how the industry is performing.

And it comes just days after York was formally chosen as the Best European Tourism City, beating big names from across the continent.

Apart from the 6.1 per cent jump in spending, visitor numbers, particularly day visitors, were also up by £339,000 to £4.18m.

And the average length of stay for those visitors paying for accommodation went up to 3.31 days from 3.28 days in the year before.

The delighted chief executive of the tourism bureau, Gillian Cruddas, said: "Our priorities now are to increase overseas visits and target higher income visitors, by doing this there is the potential to grow the value of tourism in York even more.

"Our strategy concentrates on increasing tourism income and we've exceeded our annual target of five per cent growth yet again."

The city's annual visitor survey has also just been completed and the results show that most visitors enjoy York more than other destinations they visit.

History and heritage continued to be the key draw - but there was a significant increase - from 20 per cent to 30 per cent - in respondents who like York's shopping facilities.

On the downside however only 15 per cent of visitors were from overseas, down from 19 per cent the year before and from a third of visitors in the mid-1990s.

And only 26 per cent of them were from North America, down from more than half in the mid-1990s.