A new tourism forum for Furness is to be created as the region eyes a bigger slice of Cumbria's visitor economy.

The forum was the main outcome from the Furness Tourism Summit, hosted by Barrow and Furness MP John Woodock at Ford Park in Ulverston on Friday.

Cumbria Tourism, Morecambe Bay Partnership and Furness Economic Development Forum (FEDF) will join forces with other organisations including the Lake District National Park Authority and the National Trust to set it up.

Mr Woodcock is to chair the first meeting after delegates who attended the summit threw their support behind the new forum in a bid to raise the profile of the region to visitors and capitalise on the already booming business tourism trade.

There was also support for exploring the potential for a new brand for the region that would complement the Lake District and Morecambe Bay brands.

Mr Woodcock said: “The first meeting of the forum will discuss how we are going to make it sustainable and then set goals. I want all organisations to be represented and for no one to be missed out.

“We have got these extraordinary parts of the Furness area ought to be up in lights around the country as premier attractions. 

“We know the visitor economy in the Lake District could be increasing exponentially from an already high base with UNESCO World Heritage Site status and yet so much of this area is overlooked.

“We are about working out a blueprint to put Furness on the tourism map in a way that could hugely benefit the economy in the years to come.”

The summit saw presentations from Gill Haigh, managing director of Cumbria Tourism; Susannah Bleakley, chief executive of Morecambe Bay Partnership, Carl Bevan, North West division ports manager at Association British Ports – which owns and operates the Port of Barrow – and Charlie MacKeith, of Barrow-based independent, international research arts organisation, Art Gene.

Mrs Haigh told around 40 delegates that Barrow and the surrounding area were “by far the worse” performing regions of Cumbria when it came to visitor numbers – lagging behind Carlisle, Eden and Copeland.

And while the continuing £300,000 Northern-funded national rail campaign – itself a response to the chaotic timetable switchover last year – and positive national media coverage for Furness was helping drive up awareness, she admitted more could be done.

“It is a fallacy that Cumbria Tourism is just about the Lake District – we are about the whole of Cumbria,” she said.

“We are about attracting and dispersing visitors using the Lake District brand and spreading the impact further. And this area is ideal for that.

“We feel we can move it onto another level, but the onus is on us to collectively shout about what the area has to offer visitors. We need to surprise them and tell them something they don’t know.”

Mrs Haigh said the area was already “doing well” in terms of business tourism, driven primarily by BAE Systems in Barrow.

Mr Bevan, who is also chair of FEDF, said offers and discounts to business visitors to extend their stay beyond the working week would be one way to build on this success – reflected in the extension of Barrow’s Premier Inn, the £11 million development of a Holiday Inn Express in the town, and a further Premier Inn development in Ulverston.

“We need to encourage regular business visitors to become brand ambassadors for the area,” he said.

Mr Bevan also revealed his ambition to increase the number of cruise ships calling in to Barrow – from one or two a year to up to 10 in the next two to five years.

“We are getting a few without much effort, but with the support of organisations like Cumbria Tourism, we could get so much more,” he said.

“The cruise ship industry is always looking for the next big thing and we have a great product. We have to look at dispersing visitors to places like Walney Island and Barrow because honeypot tourism will destroy what we’ve got.”

Mrs Bleakley said there was huge potential to attract visitors to Furness due to the “quality of the natural environment, richness of its heritage and culture” but that the focus should be fixed on offering a “discerning market” with experiences.

She also stressed the need for the region to get Eden Project North “ready”, with the developers behind the plans for Morecambe hoping to attract 600,000 additional visitors to the region.

Meanwhile, Mr MacKeith called for a new marketing brand for Furness and for better data to inform target marketing to redress and imbalance between the low number of leisure visitors and Barrow’s high national ranking when it came to its environmental assets.