Poldark sends pulses racing and tourism booming
BBC drama Poldark is being credited with an increase in tourism to Cornwall this summer, as people flocked to catch a glimpse of star Aidan Turner filming the second series, which aired last night.
The TV hit caused great excitement when it launched in spring 2015. Images of Poldark skinny dipping and scything without a shirt on drew six million viewers and immediately after the first-ever episode, visits to Stay in Cornwall’s website rose by 23%, according to the Daily Mirror.
Businesses now say they’re having their best summer in years, with custom up 30-40%. They list Brexit and rising prices in Europe as triggers but say the main one is Poldark, the newspaper claims.
Half of visitors who took part in a tourism survey said they had watched the series, while a fifth said Poldark had actually prompted their visit.
The hope is for an even bigger boost in visitors now series two has started.
"It has gone Aidan Turner mad," Kerry Baillie, of Porthgwarra Cove Cafe in St Levan, West Cornwall, told the Mirror.
"A lot of women come down here in full make-up and heels to have their photo taken in the place where he did the skinny dip, and a lot of them are in their 50s."
Keven Ayres, owner of the Cornish Store in Falmouth, told the Guardian: "Poldark is brilliant for us. Anything that focuses attention on Cornwall and brings more people here has to be a good thing."
Latest figures from VisitEngland show Cornwall welcomed 3.7 million people during July and August, including 1.2 million staying for longer than a day.
The visitor numbers, which included almost 84,000 tourists from abroad, are 4% higher than last year, according to Visit Cornwall.
VisitEngland says the region – as well as the whole of the UK – has benefitted from post-Brexit price changes and fears over safety abroad.
Mayor of St Ives, one of Cornwall’s most popular holiday towns, Linda Taylor said: "Without a doubt it’s busier this year.
"Whereas young families would have gone to Tunisia or Turkey, they want to just get in their car and travel safely to a destination."
Holidaymakers spent a total of almost £503 million in the county over the six weeks to the end of August.
Tourist chiefs in areas including East Anglia and the Cotswolds also reported surging visitor numbers this summer, says VisitEngland.
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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