Welcome to Yorkshire, sponsors of Yorkshire County Cricket Club have been nominated for a World Tourism Award

Yorkshire is taking on the crème de la crème of world travel after the county's tourism agency, Welcome to Yorkshire, was shortlisted for the World's Leading Tourist Board in the prestigious World Travel Awards.

With votes cast by travel, tourism and hospitality businesses in over 160 countries across the globe, Welcome to Yorkshire has been independently nominated for the award.

Yorkshire's competition for what the Wall Street Journal described as the 'Travel Industry's equivalent to the Oscar's' reads like a who's who of leading travel destinations - tourist boards from the likes of Australia, India, Jamaica, Maldives, Las Vegas, Cancun and New York are competing for the honour which will be announced in London on 7^th November (full list of nominees below).

Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: "This is global recognition for all the hard work we have been doing with our partners to raise the profile of Yorkshire as a leading travel destination. We are in illustrious and esteemed company but that is where Yorkshire belongs, Yorkshire is a world class tourist destination and our nomination recognises that.

"As England's only representative in the category Yorkshire can be very proud already, we are a leading example to the rest of the country of how successful tourism can be and we hope we can do the county and the country proud and win."

As well as being shortlisted in the World's Leading Tourist Board category, Welcome to Yorkshire has also been nominated for Europe's Leading Marketing Campaign. To date, in excess of 25m people have seen the TV campaigns alone.

Welcome to Yorkshire has won a number of awards since it launched last April. In June it won, for the second year running, the TravelMole award for Best Tourism Website award as well as the Best Use of Video award.

That followed success in May when it won the People's Choice award at the Chelsea Flower Show for its Rhubarb Crumble and Custard Garden and last year's success at the International Business Forum's awards where 'A Long Weekend in Yorkshire Isn't Long Enough' won Most Innovative Marketing Campaign Award 2009. 

FULL LIST OF WORLD'S LEADING TOURIST BOARD NOMINEES, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER:

Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority; Cancun Conventions & Visitors Bureau; Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing Government of Dubai; India Tourism; Jamaica Tourist Board; Johannesburg Tourism Company; Las Vegas CVB; Maldives Tourism Promotion Board; New York - NYC & Company; PromPeru - Peruvian Tourism Board; South Africa Tourism; Tourism Australia; Tourism Malaysia; Turkish Culture & Tourism Office; VisitBritain; Welcome To Yorkshire.

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