Introduction
York is one of the UK’s most visited heritage cities, attracting nearly nine million visitors every year. Tourism now contributes over £2 billion to the local economy and sustains around 17,000 jobs across accommodation, food and drink, retail and visitor attractions. These figures are impressive, but the sector’s significance runs deeper than money, it’s also about identity, and the stories a city tells its visitors are the stories it tells itself, shaping how communities see their own past, present and future.
To understand why this matters, we need to talk about ontological security.
Although the term may sound abstract, it refers to something profoundly human. The enduring sense of stability that enables people to navigate uncertainty with confidence, to feel that life has continuity and coherence, and to trust that their community is reliable and that their place within it is recognised. When that continuity is disrupted, anxieties multiply, defensive attitudes harden and the appeal of fear-based narratives, often steeped in racism or authoritarian politics, can grow stronger.
Tourism, therefore, does not only entertain or sustain economies, it can also play a critical role in reinforcing or destabilising community cohesion. When practiced in a way that celebrates diversity, encourages belonging and makes space for multiple voices, it can help to cultivate inclusion and resilience. Yet when it silences particular groups, tolerates hostility or reproduces exclusionary myths, it undermines the very sense of security on which social trust depends. In a city like York, where the economy is deeply bound to the fortunes of tourism, this tension becomes impossible to ignore and all the more urgent to address.
York’s industrial past and the rise of tourism
For centuries, York has drawn visitors to its Minster and medieval walls. Yet for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the city’s true backbone was industry, ranging from railway engineering and carriage works, to the Rowntree’s and Terry’s factories, which provided steady employment and a sense of security for generations of working-class families.
Then came the upheavals of globalisation and technological change. The carriage works shut their gates in the 1990s, and York’s famous chocolate makers scaled back or were sold off, leading to thousands of job losses, and with them, a hard-won certainty about the city’s economic future.
Tourism partially stepped in to fill the void. From the late 20th century onward, York doubled down on its historic brand, investing in heritage attractions or high-profile events, and today, the sector is the city’s economic lifeline.
However, that dependence creates both opportunity and vulnerability, and relying too heavily on tourism carries real risks where the visitor economy is acutely vulnerable to forces beyond the its control. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated just how swiftly global travel can collapse, while recessions, international crises or security concerns can deter visitors almost overnight. Moreover, even when demand is strong, the sector often generates employment that is seasonal, insecure, and poorly paid, offering little of the long-term stability that York’s industrial base once guaranteed.
Tourism also shapes how the city tells its own story, and too often, that story is selective. The grandeur of York’s medieval heritage dominates the spotlight, while the working-class histories that built the city’s character are pushed to the margins, and when local communities are written out of the narrative, their sense of belonging can begin to fray.
Questions of identity also lie at the heart of how communities navigate periods of change, and when economic or cultural narratives exclude certain groups, identity can become dangerously contested.
During the 1970s, as deindustrialisation eroded traditional sources of security and pride, many working-class communities across the UK found themselves stripped of stability and recognition. It was within this climate of dislocation that the National Front sought to redefine identity along exclusionary lines, exploiting economic uncertainty to scapegoat migrants and stoke racial division.
While the social and economic pressures of the present day may differ from those of the 1970s, the dynamics of division persist in new forms.
Contemporary anxieties are amplified not only by material insecurity but also by digital environments in which fear and hostility can spread with alarming speed, and shape how communities perceive safety, belonging and the boundaries of inclusion. In this sense, the story of York’s reliance on tourism is inseparable from larger questions about resilience, identity and the contested narratives that define who is understood to belong.
Computational propaganda
The Brexit referendum exposed how computational propaganda can reshape politics. York voted to ‘remain’ by 58%, while many surrounding areas in North Yorkshire voted ‘leave’, and that contrast reveals more than just geographical differences. It illustrates a divide between the city and neighbouring communities that have felt increasingly left behind by austerity.
Throughout the Brexit campaign, Cambridge Analytica not only exploited personal data, it weaponised it, and by harvesting vast quantities of online information, the company was able to micro-target voters with messages engineered to tap directly into their private anxieties and insecurities. No two individuals received the same content, meaning there was no shared space for open debate, only a fractured landscape of hidden persuasion, invisible to the wider public and impossible to challenge collectively. What emerged was not a marketplace of ideas but a system of personalised propaganda, calibrated to individual fears. It was manipulation, and it proved devastatingly effective.
That manipulation is still playing out, but this time, in full open view on social media. Algorithmic systems are designed to promote content that provokes strong emotions, so outrage is amplified and nuance is buried, creating an environment where conflict thrives and compromise withers. Over time, users are retreating into echo chambers that reinforce their convictions, cast their opponents as enemies and make genuine dialogue increasingly difficult.
That division spans the political spectrum. On the right, anxieties around immigration, nationalism and conspiracy theories circulate with little challenge, while on the left, rigid moral frameworks can lead to silencing or dismissing opponents as ‘fascists,’ even when their positions may be far more complicated.
These tendencies corrode trust and chip away at the foundations of democratic exchange, and many ordinary people, often unknowingly become complicit in this process…sharing a meme from a friend, retweeting a post that feels true, or joining a digital outrage storm that spreads misinformation laterally through trusted networks, and because it comes from someone familiar, the message is more likely to be believed.
What Cambridge Analytica once pioneered through data-driven micro-targeting has now expanded dramatically in scale, and with the arrival of generative AI, automated systems can produce endless streams of persuasive, emotionally charged content, tailored to exploit insecurities and division. Even large language models like ChatGPT, depending on the way a question is framed, can generate answers that subtly reinforce existing biases, embedding political persuasion within the ordinary flow of digital information.
Regenerative tourism as resistance
It is within this landscape, that tourism faces risks that are both social and reputational. Research consistently shows that minoritised groups often avoid destinations where they anticipate hostility. If the city were to develop a reputation as unwelcoming or discriminatory, the consequences would be profound, with fewer visitors, reduced revenue and a tangible erosion of civic pride. Racism, in this sense, is not only morally corrosive but economically self-defeating, undermining the very foundations that tourism is meant to support.
The visitor economy is far from a neutral force. It can either deepen social divisions or serve as a catalyst for repair. In York, a tourism sector that perpetuates a business-as-usual approach risks entrenching social fractures.
One of the clearest ways this manifests is through its impact on housing. As visitor numbers grow, demand for short-term lets and holiday rentals often outpaces the needs of local residents. Homes that once sustained communities are being repurposed into investment assets, leaving fewer affordable options for those who live and work in the city year-round.
This dynamic contributes to a perception, frequently voiced by residents, that tourism is driving housing precarity, fuelling rising rents, pushing young people and lower-income families out of the city and eroding the stability of long-term tenancies. The sense that the city is being reshaped more for visitors than for locals amplifies feelings of dispossession. Even where the direct causal links are complex, the symbolism of empty second homes or streets dominated by AirBnB’s reinforces the belief that tourism’s benefits come at the cost of residents’ security and belonging. If left unchecked, these pressures risk exacerbating economic inequality, displacing established communities and undermining York’s social fabric.
Regenerative tourism presents a tangible route toward a new vision, yet it must be understood within the sector as more than just an extension of environmental sustainability. It holds the potential to promote pluralistic storytelling, bringing marginalised voices and overlooked histories into conversation with the city’s celebrated heritage. In doing so, it can ensure that the full depth and diversity of York’s past is recognised, made visible and genuinely valued.
Central to this approach is resident voice and representation. Tourism isn’t something that happens in isolation for the benefit of a few businesses within the visitor economy, and every aspect of the sector, must reflect input from those who live here, to ensure that it reflects the diverse experiences and perspectives that make York unique.
Beyond fairness or inclusivity, this approach positions local communities as co-creators of the visitor economy, and seeks to ensure that revenues are reinvested into local infrastructure, community facilities and grassroots cultural initiatives, so that residents tangibly share in the benefits, reinforcing both collective ownership and a deeper connection to the city.
The role of DMOs in shaping York’s future
Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) such as Visit York stand at the crossroads of critical decisions about the city’s future. As custodians of York’s visitor economy, they are uniquely positioned to resist social division and foster community cohesion. Their role extends far beyond traditional ‘chocolate box’ marketing, serving the interests of their members or simply showcasing a few high-profile businesses. It carries the responsibility to shape narratives, amplify diverse voices and drive meaningful impact across the city.
In a time of rapid political polarisation, weak words and distant strategies are no longer sufficient, and York’s tourism sector must take a proactive stance against all forms of systemic exclusion. Embedding anti-racism into tourism is vital, but if it is pursued without addressing the economic inequalities that drive division and feed nationalist resentment, it risks adding fuel to the fire.
Tackling racism requires tackling economic exclusion at the same time.
In York’s context, this means confronting the reality that the city’s heritage has often been curated to privilege dominant cultural narratives while sidelining the experiences of working-class communities, minoritised groups and others whose contributions have been rendered invisible. A genuinely equitable tourism strategy would not only broaden the range of stories told, but also ensure that the visitor economy actively supports those who have historically been excluded from its benefits.
That requires moving from gestures to structural change. That could incorporate targeted investment in community led tourism initiatives, ensuring fair pay and secure contracts across the hospitality and cultural sectors, and creating accountability frameworks to track progress on both equity and inclusion. Training for tourism operators and businesses needs to move beyond surface-level awareness to address how systemic inequality, economic as well as racial, shapes who feels welcome, who feels secure, and who feels that York is truly their city.
Finally, regenerative tourism must be grounded in community wealth building and civic wealth creation to ensure that local assets…land, housing, businesses and cultural institutions, are used to generate long-term benefits for residents rather than being extracted by external investors. Only by embedding these principles, can York turn tourism revenues into a vehicle for shared prosperity, investing directly in neighbourhood infrastructure, affordable housing, skills development and cultural activities that serve residents first.
A final thought
Such an approach would not only strengthen the moral foundations of the city’s visitor economy but also signals that York is prepared to lead by example, positioning tourism as a space of social, economic and spatial justice. If York can rise to that challenge, it can show the world that heritage based tourism is not just about preserving the past, it is about securing a shared future.
Tourism, Trust and Community in a Divided Age
Introduction
York is one of the UK’s most visited heritage cities, attracting nearly nine million visitors every year. Tourism now contributes over £2 billion to the local economy and sustains around 17,000 jobs across accommodation, food and drink, retail and visitor attractions. These figures are impressive, but the sector’s significance runs deeper than money, it’s also about identity, and the stories a city tells its visitors are the stories it tells itself, shaping how communities see their own past, present and future.
To understand why this matters, we need to talk about ontological security.
Although the term may sound abstract, it refers to something profoundly human. The enduring sense of stability that enables people to navigate uncertainty with confidence, to feel that life has continuity and coherence, and to trust that their community is reliable and that their place within it is recognised. When that continuity is disrupted, anxieties multiply, defensive attitudes harden and the appeal of fear-based narratives, often steeped in racism or authoritarian politics, can grow stronger.
Tourism, therefore, does not only entertain or sustain economies, it can also play a critical role in reinforcing or destabilising community cohesion. When practiced in a way that celebrates diversity, encourages belonging and makes space for multiple voices, it can help to cultivate inclusion and resilience. Yet when it silences particular groups, tolerates hostility or reproduces exclusionary myths, it undermines the very sense of security on which social trust depends. In a city like York, where the economy is deeply bound to the fortunes of tourism, this tension becomes impossible to ignore and all the more urgent to address.
York’s industrial past and the rise of tourism
For centuries, York has drawn visitors to its Minster and medieval walls. Yet for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the city’s true backbone was industry, ranging from railway engineering and carriage works, to the Rowntree’s and Terry’s factories, which provided steady employment and a sense of security for generations of working-class families.
Then came the upheavals of globalisation and technological change. The carriage works shut their gates in the 1990s, and York’s famous chocolate makers scaled back or were sold off, leading to thousands of job losses, and with them, a hard-won certainty about the city’s economic future.
Tourism partially stepped in to fill the void. From the late 20th century onward, York doubled down on its historic brand, investing in heritage attractions or high-profile events, and today, the sector is the city’s economic lifeline.
However, that dependence creates both opportunity and vulnerability, and relying too heavily on tourism carries real risks where the visitor economy is acutely vulnerable to forces beyond the its control. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated just how swiftly global travel can collapse, while recessions, international crises or security concerns can deter visitors almost overnight. Moreover, even when demand is strong, the sector often generates employment that is seasonal, insecure, and poorly paid, offering little of the long-term stability that York’s industrial base once guaranteed.
Tourism also shapes how the city tells its own story, and too often, that story is selective. The grandeur of York’s medieval heritage dominates the spotlight, while the working-class histories that built the city’s character are pushed to the margins, and when local communities are written out of the narrative, their sense of belonging can begin to fray.
Questions of identity also lie at the heart of how communities navigate periods of change, and when economic or cultural narratives exclude certain groups, identity can become dangerously contested.
During the 1970s, as deindustrialisation eroded traditional sources of security and pride, many working-class communities across the UK found themselves stripped of stability and recognition. It was within this climate of dislocation that the National Front sought to redefine identity along exclusionary lines, exploiting economic uncertainty to scapegoat migrants and stoke racial division.
While the social and economic pressures of the present day may differ from those of the 1970s, the dynamics of division persist in new forms.
Contemporary anxieties are amplified not only by material insecurity but also by digital environments in which fear and hostility can spread with alarming speed, and shape how communities perceive safety, belonging and the boundaries of inclusion. In this sense, the story of York’s reliance on tourism is inseparable from larger questions about resilience, identity and the contested narratives that define who is understood to belong.
Computational propaganda
The Brexit referendum exposed how computational propaganda can reshape politics. York voted to ‘remain’ by 58%, while many surrounding areas in North Yorkshire voted ‘leave’, and that contrast reveals more than just geographical differences. It illustrates a divide between the city and neighbouring communities that have felt increasingly left behind by austerity.
Throughout the Brexit campaign, Cambridge Analytica not only exploited personal data, it weaponised it, and by harvesting vast quantities of online information, the company was able to micro-target voters with messages engineered to tap directly into their private anxieties and insecurities. No two individuals received the same content, meaning there was no shared space for open debate, only a fractured landscape of hidden persuasion, invisible to the wider public and impossible to challenge collectively. What emerged was not a marketplace of ideas but a system of personalised propaganda, calibrated to individual fears. It was manipulation, and it proved devastatingly effective.
That manipulation is still playing out, but this time, in full open view on social media. Algorithmic systems are designed to promote content that provokes strong emotions, so outrage is amplified and nuance is buried, creating an environment where conflict thrives and compromise withers. Over time, users are retreating into echo chambers that reinforce their convictions, cast their opponents as enemies and make genuine dialogue increasingly difficult.
That division spans the political spectrum. On the right, anxieties around immigration, nationalism and conspiracy theories circulate with little challenge, while on the left, rigid moral frameworks can lead to silencing or dismissing opponents as ‘fascists,’ even when their positions may be far more complicated.
These tendencies corrode trust and chip away at the foundations of democratic exchange, and many ordinary people, often unknowingly become complicit in this process…sharing a meme from a friend, retweeting a post that feels true, or joining a digital outrage storm that spreads misinformation laterally through trusted networks, and because it comes from someone familiar, the message is more likely to be believed.
What Cambridge Analytica once pioneered through data-driven micro-targeting has now expanded dramatically in scale, and with the arrival of generative AI, automated systems can produce endless streams of persuasive, emotionally charged content, tailored to exploit insecurities and division. Even large language models like ChatGPT, depending on the way a question is framed, can generate answers that subtly reinforce existing biases, embedding political persuasion within the ordinary flow of digital information.
Regenerative tourism as resistance
It is within this landscape, that tourism faces risks that are both social and reputational. Research consistently shows that minoritised groups often avoid destinations where they anticipate hostility. If the city were to develop a reputation as unwelcoming or discriminatory, the consequences would be profound, with fewer visitors, reduced revenue and a tangible erosion of civic pride. Racism, in this sense, is not only morally corrosive but economically self-defeating, undermining the very foundations that tourism is meant to support.
The visitor economy is far from a neutral force. It can either deepen social divisions or serve as a catalyst for repair. In York, a tourism sector that perpetuates a business-as-usual approach risks entrenching social fractures.
One of the clearest ways this manifests is through its impact on housing. As visitor numbers grow, demand for short-term lets and holiday rentals often outpaces the needs of local residents. Homes that once sustained communities are being repurposed into investment assets, leaving fewer affordable options for those who live and work in the city year-round.
This dynamic contributes to a perception, frequently voiced by residents, that tourism is driving housing precarity, fuelling rising rents, pushing young people and lower-income families out of the city and eroding the stability of long-term tenancies. The sense that the city is being reshaped more for visitors than for locals amplifies feelings of dispossession. Even where the direct causal links are complex, the symbolism of empty second homes or streets dominated by AirBnB’s reinforces the belief that tourism’s benefits come at the cost of residents’ security and belonging. If left unchecked, these pressures risk exacerbating economic inequality, displacing established communities and undermining York’s social fabric.
Regenerative tourism presents a tangible route toward a new vision, yet it must be understood within the sector as more than just an extension of environmental sustainability. It holds the potential to promote pluralistic storytelling, bringing marginalised voices and overlooked histories into conversation with the city’s celebrated heritage. In doing so, it can ensure that the full depth and diversity of York’s past is recognised, made visible and genuinely valued.
Central to this approach is resident voice and representation. Tourism isn’t something that happens in isolation for the benefit of a few businesses within the visitor economy, and every aspect of the sector, must reflect input from those who live here, to ensure that it reflects the diverse experiences and perspectives that make York unique.
Beyond fairness or inclusivity, this approach positions local communities as co-creators of the visitor economy, and seeks to ensure that revenues are reinvested into local infrastructure, community facilities and grassroots cultural initiatives, so that residents tangibly share in the benefits, reinforcing both collective ownership and a deeper connection to the city.
The role of DMOs in shaping York’s future
Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) such as Visit York stand at the crossroads of critical decisions about the city’s future. As custodians of York’s visitor economy, they are uniquely positioned to resist social division and foster community cohesion. Their role extends far beyond traditional ‘chocolate box’ marketing, serving the interests of their members or simply showcasing a few high-profile businesses. It carries the responsibility to shape narratives, amplify diverse voices and drive meaningful impact across the city.
In a time of rapid political polarisation, weak words and distant strategies are no longer sufficient, and York’s tourism sector must take a proactive stance against all forms of systemic exclusion. Embedding anti-racism into tourism is vital, but if it is pursued without addressing the economic inequalities that drive division and feed nationalist resentment, it risks adding fuel to the fire.
Tackling racism requires tackling economic exclusion at the same time.
In York’s context, this means confronting the reality that the city’s heritage has often been curated to privilege dominant cultural narratives while sidelining the experiences of working-class communities, minoritised groups and others whose contributions have been rendered invisible. A genuinely equitable tourism strategy would not only broaden the range of stories told, but also ensure that the visitor economy actively supports those who have historically been excluded from its benefits.
That requires moving from gestures to structural change. That could incorporate targeted investment in community led tourism initiatives, ensuring fair pay and secure contracts across the hospitality and cultural sectors, and creating accountability frameworks to track progress on both equity and inclusion. Training for tourism operators and businesses needs to move beyond surface-level awareness to address how systemic inequality, economic as well as racial, shapes who feels welcome, who feels secure, and who feels that York is truly their city.
Finally, regenerative tourism must be grounded in community wealth building and civic wealth creation to ensure that local assets…land, housing, businesses and cultural institutions, are used to generate long-term benefits for residents rather than being extracted by external investors. Only by embedding these principles, can York turn tourism revenues into a vehicle for shared prosperity, investing directly in neighbourhood infrastructure, affordable housing, skills development and cultural activities that serve residents first.
A final thought
Such an approach would not only strengthen the moral foundations of the city’s visitor economy but also signals that York is prepared to lead by example, positioning tourism as a space of social, economic and spatial justice. If York can rise to that challenge, it can show the world that heritage based tourism is not just about preserving the past, it is about securing a shared future.