DAME Judi Dench has lent her support to a city's battle to attract tourists next year after visitor numbers slumped following the terrorist attacks in America.

A council report says that the events of September 11 had an immediate and catastrophic effect on York's vital tourism sector, which employs about 9,000 people.

Overseas trade fell by as much as 20 per cent and room occupancy figures were down 12 per cent on 1999, said Tony Bennett, assistant director of economic development with City of York Council.

But the First Stop York Tourism Partnership has launched a major drive to counter the problems and increase visitor numbers next year and in 2003.

Staff from the tourism group have recently been promoting the city to 30,000 trade operators and buyers from across the world at the World Travel Market, at Earls Court in London.

They handed out copies of the new York Visitor Guide, which includes a personal recommendation to visit the city by Oscar-winning actress Dame Judi Dench.

Seventy thousand copies of the guide, which promotes the city as "lively, vibrant and historic", will be distributed by the British Tourist Authority overseas, and another 300,000 will be available at tourist information centres across the UK.