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Raising standards
The region's tourist attractions are offering a quality service to the visitors who pass through their doors.
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A character in Roman dress shows a young visitor around the exhibits during a special event
at the Hull and East Riding Museum; |
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Hull's Maritime Museum and (below) an exhibit on modern forms of slavery at Wilberforce House Museum
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There's no doubt about it – tourism is big business.
The tourist industry in Hull and the East Riding supports 14,000 jobs and is worth £540 million to the local economy.
It's also highly competitive with rival areas of the country all vying for a larger share of the tourist market.
Quality counts
Hull City Council, East Riding of Yorkshire Council and regional development agency Yorkshire Forward have teamed up to form Visit Hull and East Yorkshire (VHEY).
VHEY is working with the area's tourist attractions to help them pull in more visitors.
Hull's museums and art galleries have worked with VHEY to achieve a tourism quality standard known as the Visitor Attraction Quality Service (VAQAS).
Headed by a national tourism organisation called Visit Britain, VAQAS raises standards of customer care to provide a better all-round service to visitors in person, on the phone, or using the website.
Ferens Art Gallery, the Guildhall, Hands on History Museum, Hull and East Riding Museum, Hull Maritime Museum, Streetlife Museum of Transport, and Wilberforce House have all achieved the quality mark.
Prestige
"This accreditation scheme is important for our cultural venues," says Simon Green, Hull City Council's head of museum operations.
"This is the gold standard for visitor attractions in the UK and puts us in the same league for quality of visitor and customer care as the Tower of London and Alnwick Castle in Northumberland."
Wider success
Some of the other sites which have achieved the quality standard are Beverley Guildhall, Goole Museum, Skidby Windmill and Museum, the Treasure House and Art Gallery, Beverley, and the Yorkshire Waterways Museum, Goole.
"The VAQAS awards are a fantastic achievement," says Anthony Yates, tourism manager for VHEY.
"To have so many accredited local venues is an accolade most other regions in the country can only aspire to."
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