Shropshire welcomes 15 million visitors every year bringing millions to the economy

Overnight visitors alone contribute £172m, according to the latest figures.

Now moves are afoot to give the region wider appeal by developing new visitor packages.

Top attractions Attingham Park, RAF Museum Cosford, The Iron Bridge, and the idyllic landscape are just some of the favourites that holiday makers and day-trippers alike return to enjoy.

Tourism chiefs say the county is benefitting from a high number repeat visits on the strength of its more than 300 sites featuring historic parks and gardens, shops, restaurants, theatres, museums and ancient churches.

Growth

Telford & Wrekin Council funded team Discover Telford, Visit Shropshire said that the county visitor economy is ranked in the top five industry sectors for growth and employment and that there is room to expand and improve it.

Growth indicator figures show that the average business day visitor spends £105 per day, while the average leisure visitor spend £25 per day.

Numbers are being boosted by the one million tourists who flock to the World Heritage Site at Ironbridge, a Visit Britain tier one attraction; more than 300 festivals and concerts; 5,000 conventions and exhibitions.

Meanwhile the busy Telford International Centre is also ranked in the UK's top 10 convention venues.

The Discover team works in partnership with organisations and attractions including Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, Arriva Transport, RAF Museum Cosford, English Heritage, Severn Valley Railway, Harper Adams University, University of Wolverhampton, Lilleshall National Sports Centre,Salop Leisure, Southwater Events Group, Telford Town Park and Telford Ice Rink.

Telford & Wrekin Council's destination programme team leader Charlotte Cain said: "This is a really important sector for our local economy. As a destination marketing office we have the pleasure of working with over 200 local businesses across Shropshire.

Destination

"Using these figures we will be making sure that we will be getting the biggest piece if the pie where the county is concerned. The figures were also released at an annual meeting.

"We will be planning our team's activity for spring 2019 and it is fantastic to see our big attractions working in partnership with the county's official destination marketing team.

"There has been significant investment by Telford & Wrekin council to position the borough with staff resources and very strong inward investment.

"This means that we are winning business as well as attracting visitors. The investment is proving successful with large international companies choosing Telford over other places to come and do business."

VisitBritain said that nationally a key target on tourism has been reached two years ahead of target.

It had set out to attract more than 40 million foreign visitors a year by 2020, but the number has already hit 40.9 million.