A campaign is to be launched later this year to encourage more visitors to come to Keswick during the winter.
The initiative by Keswick Tourism Association is aimed at clawing back some of the many millions of pounds in revenue lost by local businesses during lockdown, which wiped out the normally busy Easter period, most of the spring and a large part of the summer.
Day trippers and holidaymakers have flooded back since lockdown was lifted.
Now images of snow-capped mountains and of pubs with roaring fires will be used to tempt more to return in the winter when it goes live after KTA’s current campaign — Come Back To Keswick — has run its course and following the subsequent annual autumn colours push.
“We are still expecting September and October to be good and probably better than usual,” said KTA’s tourism manager Vanessa Metcalfe.
“Then we get into November and early December, which can be quiet apart from the Victorian Fayre, before January and February, which are our two quietest months.
“We’re not sure whether people will be fed up and risk going abroad.
“We’re hoping we will be busier than we expected to be, so we want to run a campaign that will promote Keswick as a winter holiday destination and focus on all the things you want to come to Keswick for in winter, like frosty mornings and all the indoor activities we have got.
“January and February are unknown quantities and we will have to work really hard to encourage people to come here then,” added Vanessa.
She stressed that everything depended on the situation across the UK with coronavirus infection rates and related restrictions for travel and social distancing over the coming weeks and months.
