There may be no such as thing as the typical visitor. But that hasn't stopped Colchester's tourism chiefs drawing up a profile of the town's average visitor.

Colchester Council's tourism team carried out a series of on-the-street interviews with visitors to the town during the summer months to build up a picture of what the typical tourist is like.

The work helps shape the town's tourism strategy for the future and a forum of people, including those in the tourism industry, Colchester Chamber of Commerce and members of the council, are currently working on a strategy to increase visits in the next few years.

According to the council's tourism team, the typical visitors are:

an elderly couple

those who come for the day

those who enjoy shopping

those who come on a leisure trip

Karen Elmer, the council's leisure marketing and tourism officer, said 72 per cent of visitors would come again.

She said the future of tourism in the town was varied. Targeting younger visitors was likely to become a priority as part of creating a healthy mix of visitors and the use of the internet in promoting the town was likely to become more widespread.

Published Tuesday October 29, 2002

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