Haunted York: The Intervention Launches to Drive Autumn Visits to York

At a Glance

What we did: Visit York launched Haunted York: The Intervention, a major autumn campaign using York’s ghostly reputation, atmospheric experiences and playful storytelling to inspire visits to the city.

How it benefits York and beyond: The campaign aims to strengthen autumn visitation, encourage longer stays and generate visitor spend across York’s attractions, hospitality, retail, experiences and accommodation.

Who it supports: The campaign supports Visit York members and partners across the visitor economy while targeting families, couples, day visitors and autumn short-break audiences.

The key result: The campaign is now live across Visit York’s major marketing channels, creating a coordinated citywide push throughout the key autumn and Halloween period.

The full story

Visit York has launched Haunted York: The Intervention, its major autumn destination marketing campaign for 2026, delivered through Make It York’s marketing and communications activity.

Officially launched on 10 September, the campaign is now building throughout the autumn, using York’s extraordinary reputation for ghosts, dark history and atmospheric streets to inspire visitors to discover more of the city.

The premise is simple: York has become so haunted that Visit York has been forced to intervene.

Using a combination of humour, atmospheric storytelling and distinctly York experiences, The Intervention presents the city’s seemingly unstoppable supernatural activity as another reason to visit this autumn.

Rather than focusing solely on traditional Halloween experiences, the campaign connects York’s ghost stories and darker history with the breadth of the city’s visitor offer. Attractions, ghost walks and seasonal events sit alongside food and drink, shopping, cosy places to recover and reasons to turn an autumn day trip into an overnight stay.

The campaign is particularly targeting regional families with older children and teenagers alongside adult couples aged 25–55, helping position York as an exciting and distinctive choice for an autumn day out or short break.

Activity is being delivered across a wide mix of channels, led by the main Haunted York campaign film and dedicated Haunted York Hub on visityork.org. This is supported by paid and organic social media, YouTube, TV and video-on-demand advertising, PR, Visit York eNewsletters, content at the Visit York Visitor Information Centre and integrated York Park & Ride activity.

York Park & Ride, operated by First Bus, plays a prominent role within The Intervention, positioning Park & Ride as an easy way for regional visitors to begin their Haunted York experience and connecting practical visitor information directly with the campaign story.

The campaign is also being delivered alongside some of York’s best-known visitor experiences. York Dungeon, JORVIK and the National Railway Museum are Key Partners, while Potions Cauldron, York Maze and the Original Ghost Walk of York are Campaign Supporters, helping showcase the breadth of ways visitors can experience York’s spooky side this autumn.

For Visit York members, The Intervention also provides a strong shared theme around which businesses across the visitor economy can promote their own autumn offer. From attractions and experiences to accommodation, restaurants, cafés, bars and retailers, the campaign has been designed to create a wider city story rather than focusing on one individual event or attraction.

This supports an important period for York’s visitor economy between the peak summer months and Christmas, helping maintain destination visibility and providing fresh reasons to visit throughout September and October.

By showcasing how much there is to experience both during the day and after dark, the campaign also aims to encourage visitors to spend longer in York, explore more businesses and consider extending their trip with an overnight stay.

York is haunted. Consider this your warning.

Discover the campaign and explore Haunted York at visityork.org/haunted