Thousands Enjoy Heritage Weekend in Guildford As Tourism Numbers Increase

Published on: 17 Sep, 2015
Updated on: 22 Sep, 2015

Thousands of visitors enjoyed this year’s Heritage Open Days. The four day event (September 10 to 13), showcased a wide range of free activities from village churches, theatre tours and guided walks to re-enactments and tours of historic buildings.

Guildford regularly features in the list of top ten towns with the highest number of Heritage Open Day sites to visit.

On Saturday, September 12, The Mayor of Guildford, Nikki Nelson-Smith (Con, Christchurch) welcomed 900 visitors to The Guildhall, where there was a rare opportunity to go on the balcony overlooking the High Street and view the Mayor’s Parlour.

Cllr Geoff Davis, lead councillor for economic development, heritage and tourism said: “We had a wonderful array of sites and places to visit, as well as things to do during Heritage Open Days. In the autumn, we will discover how we compare with other towns who took part across the UK, when the Heritage Open Days National Partnership announces the best performing towns and cities.

There were plenty of visitors at Watts Gallery to enjoy free entry to the beautifully restored buildings.

“Next year’s event will take place on September 8 – 11, if you know of a building or activity that we could include in our programme please contact us.”

If you have any photos of your Heritage Weekend visits to share please send them to guildford.dragon@gmail.com

The success of heritage weekend reinforced earlier news that Guildford has been recognised as a successful tourism area in a report by Tourism South East. The report revealed that tourism has increased in Guildford both in terms of visitors and the amount they spend – bucking a national trend of falling visitor numbers.

A visitor enjoying the garden at Stoke Hospital, in Stoke Road, another of Guildford’s historic buildings open over Heritage Weekend.

Cllr Davis, welcomed the report’s findings and said: “Tourism is vital to the local economy, for both income and employment, providing over 6,000 jobs in the area. We are delighted that recent events such as National Armed Forces Day , the Olympic Torch Relay, Tour of Britain, Olympic Cycle Road Race, and Prudential Ride London have increased tourist interest in Guildford.

“We have seen a significant increase in visitors from China, and Chinese tour operators are interested in our borough due to our proximity to London.”

The recent study, commissioned by Guildford Borough Council, showed that there were an estimated 341,000 trips to Guildford in 2014 where visitors stayed overnight. Of these 71% were domestic visitors and 29% from overseas – an increase of 1.7% in domestic and a 4.2% increase in overseas visitors. Figures for the South East of England over the same time period showed a drop of 9%.

In 2014, there were over four million day trips to Guildford with visitor spending increased by 3.9% to a total of over £330 million. Nationally tourism day trips fell by 2%.

Tourism supports 4,465 jobs in Guildford – and when part time and seasonal jobs are included, the total number of jobs related to tourism is 6,099, or 8.1% of jobs in Guildford.

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