TOURISM businesses have been urged to help fight crime after York’s police commander highlighted how it had ruined some visitors’ impressions of the city.

Superintendent Lisa Winward made the appeal to tourism chiefs at Visit York’s annual general meeting and conference yesterday.

She noted a number of incidents which had affected York’s reputation as a safe city, including the “lovely sunny June day” when Hull City fans “wreaked havoc” in the city centre.

One woman, whose family of 12 visits York for a cycling holiday every year, wrote to Supt Winward after four of their bicycles were stolen during their last holiday, saying they were seriously considering not coming back.

“It really expresses the impact feeling safe can have,” she said.

“They are the exception rather than the norm for York but any visitor seeing those things might not know that.

“York is actually one of the safest cities in the country for visitors and tourists.”

North Yorkshire Police is targeting cycle crime, night time violence and graffiti after research showed people tend to be better behaved in clean places.

She said that businesses could help by keeping their properties clean and tidy, using CCTV effectively, giving crime prevention advice to tourists and training staff in the preventative powers the police have to prevent trouble.

She said that vehicle crime in city centre car parks had reduced from about 250 cases in 2003/04 to fewer than 20 last year and street robbery had reduced by 50 per cent since 2006/07 with 79 crimes predicted city-wide in 2010/11.

Offences of theft from people – such as pick-pocketing – had reduced by 44 per cent since 2006/07 with 230 crimes expected during 2010/11.

Operation Style, an offensive against night time violence on Fridays and Saturday evenings during the peak summer and Christmas periods, has seen violence within the most densely populated zone of pubs and clubs in York reduce for the past four years.

She said cycle thefts in York compared favourably with other cycling cities, with about 1.3 per 1,000 population, compared with Oxford at about 2.6 and Cambridge at five per 1,000 population.

Delegates at the Visit York meeting also heard it had made a profit of £44,000 in the year to March 31, 2010, compared with a loss of £19,000 in 2009.

Chairman John Yeomans said the tourism sector in York had experienced slow growth, although some sectors had done very well.