Continuum set for major expansion
CONTINUUM Leading Attractions, which operates York’s Chocolate Story and Coronation Street The Tour, has announced plans to double its portfolio over the next three to five years.
The privately-owned York-based group has revealed its intentions on the back of the success of its Coronation Street attraction which it launched in April. The group said the success it has seen with the new tour proves there is significant commercial value yet to be mined in the breadth of Britain’s culture, old and new.
The Coronation Street attraction is the result of a collaboration between Continuum and ITV. More than half the initially available 300,000 tickets were pre-sold, and Continuum said total sales for the initial six months of the tour were likely to top £5m. Up to 2200 Corrie fans are flocking to see the old Weatherfield set each day and Marketing Manchester said that the attraction had the potential to generate up to £25.5m for the local economy.
Juliana Delaney, chief executive of Continuum Leading Attractions, said: “This is the highest profile visitor attraction we’ve ever been involved in, and we want to use it as a platform for significant growth over the next few years.
“’We don’t do theme park and we don’t do culture that is stuffy, elitist or boring. We focus on using Britain’s rich and real cultural heritage to create memorable experiences for visitors.”
Thirty years ago, the privately-owned Continuum was behind the development of the Jorvik Centre in York and has helped create more than 100 visitor attractions worldwide over the past 30 years. It currently operates seven cultural attractions across the UK, including York’s Chocolate Story, Oxford Castle Unlocked, the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth and The Real Mary King’s Close in Edinburgh.
The group has a turnover of approximately £12.5m and employs more than 400 people across its UK sites.
Delaney added: “I expect that well over one million people will visit our attractions this year, but our goal is for that to grow to more than four million over the next few years. By 2019 I would hope that we will be operating up to 15 cultural attractions.
“We’re particularly keen to work with local authorities to help make publically-owned cultural assets commercially viable and sustainable.”
It is predicted that around 12,000 people a week will visit the former ITV studio site over the next six months. The set, which has already welcomed its 100,000th visitor, has become one of the busiest tourist attractions in the whole of Britain and has created around 60 new jobs.
