Harrogate Borough Council paid £5,220 to install a Christmas snow globe at London’s King’s Cross station for two days, the Stray Ferret has learned.
The giant inflatable globe was put on the passenger concourse at King’s Cross in November to promote Harrogate’s Christmas Fayre and entice people towards a £140 LNER train service from the capital to Harrogate to sample the festivities.
The snow globe also offered people the chance to have selfies taken inside a winter wonderland scene.
The idea came from the council’s tourism organisation, Visit Harrogate, which partnered with LNER for the rail offer. The first-class service included special Harrogate goodie bags.
Through a freedom of information request, the Stray Ferret discovered Visit Harrogate spent £5,220 to hire the globe for two 12-hour days at King’s Cross. The price included VAT and the wages of two people who operated the globe.
The Stray Ferret also asked Harrogate Borough Council how many tickets to Harrogate were sold for the Christmas rail offer but the council said it did not know. LNER declined to disclose the information.
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Harrogate Christmas Fayre took place from December 2 to December 12 in the town centre. It replaced the previous Harrogate Christmas Market after organisers were not given a licence to run the event by the council.
The Stray Ferret revealed last month that Visit Harrogate paid a social media influencer from Bristol £700 to promote the fayre in a blog, which only received two likes on Facebook, including one from the council itself.
Christmas festivities across the country were dampened by the Omicron wave that hit the UK in the days leading up to Christmas.
‘Record traffic’
A spokesperson for Destination Harrogate, which includes Visit Harrogate, said:
“Visit Harrogate’s partnership with LNER saw the eye-catching snow globe travel to the capital to take a prime position in one of London’s busiest train stations, Kings Cross. The station which sees hundreds of thousands of commuters each day, allowed for maximum exposure of Harrogate district while promoting the direct LNER line from London to Harrogate.
“Located in the centre of the concourse and visible from all the main approaches, the giant snow globe became a key meeting point at the station on a Friday and Saturday – two busy days for a train station in the capital – with hundreds of people pulling out their phones to take photographs, sharing them on social media and further extend the reach of the campaign.
“During this period, the Visit Harrogate website received record levels of traffic, demonstrating the success of not only this activity, but also the wider Destination Christmas campaign.
“The purpose of all of our campaigns is to support our local visitor economy which makes up around 15% of the economy in the Harrogate district and provides jobs for around 8,000 people. For a visitor economy to continue to thrive and grow, it requires a collaborative approach and ambitious and exciting campaigns, such as this.”
