TOURISM is finally being recognised as a growth industry with the potential to create thousands of North-East jobs, a County Durham industry leader said.

Representatives from around 100 tourism businesses, ranging from major attractions to bed and breakfast owners, attended the Visit County Durham Industry Conference in Durham City yesterday.

At a time when tourism is worth £4bn to the region's economy and supports 65,000 North-East jobs Melanie Sensicle, Chief Executive of Visit County Durham, said its value as an industry was now being recognised.

"I think there has been a recognition right across the country that tourism and hospitality is a major force," she said.

"It had been slow to be recognised at the national level but we have a Prime Minister who talked about tourism in an early speech, a Minister for tourism, which we never had before, and a national tourism board in Visit Britain.

"Tourism has been taken for granted, a large part of the industry is micro businesses and they are very busy changing beds and cooking bacon and eggs and they do need help, they can't do it by themselves, that is why Visit County Durham exists."

Ms Sensicle's belief that strides had been made since the tourism body was formed around five years ago is backed up by figures showing that as visitor numbers to the region rose again last year, from 80million to 83million, County Durham recording the biggest growth as visitors ploughed an extra £25m into the local economy.

Tourism is worth £650m a year to County Durham, supports 12,000 jobs and accounts for 4.6 per cent of total employment in the North-East.

Ms Sensicle said: "I think it was low key, the promotion of the county, the development of tourism, there were other sectors regarded as more important.

"The thing about tourism is that it produces jobs quickly and they have a longevity to them.

"It is very good for our population, there are people looking for entry level jobs and we have a very high number of small and medium sized enterprises, bed and breakfasts, attractions, tourism is a very entrepreneurial sector, we have a lot of owner managers running the businesses."

One of the key topics at yesterday's event, held at the new Radisson Blu hotel, was a survey of visitors, undertaken last year by regional development agency One North East, examining the profiles, expenditure, satisfaction and activities of more than 400 visitors in 12 different locations across County Durham.

Ms Sensicle said: "I think the key response is that we are making progress, that visitors do enjoy coming to visit Durham, but there are still some lessons to learn.

"Visitor habits are changing in terms of how they research and book, that is a really strong message with every survey we do.

"We have to make sure visitors can access the county online, book it online and we can provide the information in a way they want to receive it.

"It is a competitive industry, in the North-East we are bordered by Yorkshire, The Lake District and Scotland and if they are giving that to visitors we need to keep doing the same."

Another key message was the growing importance of short breaks with County Durham mirroring the rest of Britain where the average stay fell from seven nights to five.

Ms Sensicle said: "If you don't understand the visitor and what they want you can't expect to be successful, but we are doing that."