Is the way to visitors' hearts through their stomachs? DAVID ANDREWS, chief executive, Yorkshire Tourist Board (YTB), looks at the importance of local food and drink on the tourism menu.

ONCE again, York and North Yorkshire are set to benefit from a major national campaign to persuade the people of Britain to take breaks in England instead of running the gauntlet of the airport check-in, delayed flights, threatened industrial action by air traffic controllers and departure lounge refreshment prices.

This time it's a double bonus for Yorkshire. The marketing team here at YTB has been working with VisitBritain, the national body responsible for marketing England to the Brits and Britain overseas, on two interlinked campaigns for this autumn.

The first, a £1.5 million campaign, launching at the beginning of September, focuses on autumn breaks will be complemented by the second, the Taste England campaign, created in response to consumer demand for information on food and drink as an integral part of the holiday experience.

And of course, York features. Who would expect any less, especially when the York Festival of Food and Drink gets under way in the weeks following the launch of Taste England?

With the campaigns supported by press advertising, direct marketing, editorial, viral, online and field marketing to an impressive extent, we can expect to see the Taste England brochure with its Yorkshire content flying out of the mailing house bound for doormats all over Britain.

This is a campaign grounded in careful research and preparation. We didn't just sit around a table, throw ideas about and flip a coin for the product content of the next campaign. We took a good, long, hard look at what consumers were asking for.

In this instance, when in late 2003 VisitBritain funded research into what consumers wanted, the results revealed an overwhelming consumer interest in food and drink as a purchase driver when making a short break choice.

The bottom line was that 49.5 per cent of those asked responded that quality local food and drink played "an important part of enjoying my holiday". When almost half your market actually states a preference, any business would be foolish not to act immediately.

But it isn't only York that will benefit. For the past year YTB has been working behind the scenes with tourism businesses up and down Yorkshire, highlighting the benefits of buying local.

A visitor would rather sit down to Ryedale lamb in Yorkshire than oysters from Whitstable. They come here to experience Yorkshire and they want to taste as well as see it.

If you buy fish-and-chips in Whitby, you expect your fish to have been landed on the quayside at Whitby that morning, you don't expect it to be 'fresh' from the freezers of some faceless frozen food wholesaler.

More and more tourism businesses are opting for local produce, from bacon and eggs to Sand Hutton Asparagus and, of course, proper York Ham. The icing on the cake, or should I say almond on the Fat Rascal, is that whilst serving up local produce to visitors, with usual Yorkshire canniness we are benefiting our own internal economy.

Money spent locally stays local and as a born-again Yorkshireman I think that's an excellent idea.

Updated: 09:03 Tuesday, July 27, 2004