HOTELIERS across the Lake District are celebrating a bumper autumn season, new figures reveal.
Cumbria Tourism bosses say provisional stats show the busy summer continued well into September and October.
The strong occupancy figures are being hailed as a boon for the national park ahead of what is traditionally a quieter time of the year.
Ian Stephens, managing director of Cumbria Tourism, said: "It was a challenging start to 2016, but the industry has worked hard to welcome visitors to the area and together; we have shown just how resilient Cumbria is.
"The strong occupancy figures over the past six months suggest we certainly have good reason to be cautiously optimistic about the performance of our tourism industry going into 2017.
"That said, anecdotal feedback from attractions and retailers suggests a more mixed experience, so we will be watching this closely and collecting further data over the coming months to evaluate how well different types of tourism businesses have been doing.”
As the county’s official destination marketing organisation, Cumbria Tourism represents more than 2,500 members and carries out the monthly Cumbria Tourism Occupancy Surveys to monitor performance across hotels, guesthouses, B&Bs, self-catering, and camping and caravan sites.
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