CUMBRIA'S hotels, guesthouses and B&Bs had a welcome boost as record occupancy levels continued into the autumn.

The number of people taking up the county's accommodation offering was the highest for a decade in September, hitting 79.4 per cent.

October's occupancy was as strong as 2015, at 68.3 per cent, and self-catering levels hit the highest ever recorded - 66.9 per cent - for that month.

The provisional figures from Cumbria Tourism's research team reflect the health of the tourism economy and have brought a positive boost to the organisation's winter marketing campaign, designed to generate bookings and raise awareness of what the county has to offer over the traditionally quieter months.

The body, which represents more than 2,500 members, carries out its monthly occupancy surveys to monitor performance across hotels, guesthouses, B&B and self-catering accommodation as well as camping and caravan sites.

Ian Stephens, managing director of Cumbria Tourism, said: “These figures are a welcome boost for the county’s £2.62 billion tourism industry as we approach the traditional quieter months of the year. 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."

Any tourism business, including non-Cumbria Tourism members, can participate in the survey and instantly access bench-marking data to compare performance against each other.