ABSTRACT
Development of heritage tourism in Bradford, England Bradford Metropolitan District, with its population of 480,000 people, is located on the western fringes of the West Yorkshire conurbation (Figure 8:3). Bradford is a product of the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, and its economic base until very recently was founded on textiles and engineering,
Figure 8:3 Bradford: location and major tourism attractions
factors which had contributed to a popular image of the place as a grim and grimy northern city, plagued by poor housing and amenities and suffering extreme levels of unemployment. By the 1980s, inevitable decline in traditional industries posed major challenges to attempts to restructure and revive the area. Surprisingly, the new strategies that emerged to address these problems included proposals for the promotion of tourism, using several established or potential attractions as a basis. These included:
• an existing stock of hotel bed spaces associated with the city’s commercial activity;
• a superb Victorian industrial heritage, including the model community of Saltaire;
• proximity to the Yorkshire Dales National Park and other scenic areas such as Ilkley Moor;
• the village of Haworth (which lies in the Metropolitan District) and which is the centre of ‘Brontë Country’;
• the Keighley and Worth Valley steam railway; • locational settings for the popular TV soap Emmerdale.
