York tourist and retail chiefs were unfazed today after a city-based railway company launched a campaign to lure custom ... to Leeds.

Train operator Transpennine Express and Leeds City Council have linked arms in a promotion featuring Coronation Street hairdresser Fiona, alias Leeds-born actress Angela Griffin.

People will be encouraged to take a train from York to Leeds with offers of reduced price admission to the Royal Armouries, the Joshua Tetley Brewery Wharf Tour, Thackray Medical Museum and Tropical World, and also special discount meal deals.

John Gallery, general manager of the Swallow Hotel, York and former chairman of both the York Tourism Bureau and the York Hospitality Association, was relaxed about the campaign - provided genuine York business is not being poached away.

"They have clearly seen an opportunity, knowing that York has four million visitors a year," he said.

"There is no harm in encouraging York people to visit Leeds. but I hope they are not trying to poach the genuine business that comes into our city. The railway companies are helpful in getting tourists to York, but if this promotion means that tourists bypass us for Leeds then it is wrong.

"We are not concerned if they did visit Leeds because we know they would return to York as long as they were aware of the qualities that are here in the first place."

Gillian Cruddas, chief executive of York Tourism Bureau said the First Stop York campaign offering discounts in York between September and May had been hugely successful, due in large part to the efforts of Transpennine Express.

Nick Brown, managing director of Browns department store said: "Is it really surprising they are marketing Leeds so hard when York has European and world attractions like the National Railway Museum, the Jorvik Centre and the Castle Museum? Their marketing concern demonstrates only that York is strong and that the dominance of Leeds in the 1980s is over in spite of being four or five times bigger than our city.

"And York will be even stronger when the Monk's Cross and Naburn retail developments come on stream by the end of the year. It will confirm that our city's customer base will extend in at least a 20-mile radius."

Today a TransPennine Express spokesman said the company had persuaded, and would continue to persuade, tens of thousands of people to come to York.

"It's very much a two-way operation. The first and most successful example of this sort of campaign is First Stop York, the benefits of which have been very considerable for York."

see COMMENT 'Competition is good for York'

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