Tourism is worth a staggering 250m a year to the Oxford economy, it has been revealed.

But tourism bosses say 80 per cent of visitors to the historic city are still day-trippers, writes Andrew Ffrench.

And they are convinced that a larger number of visitors would stay longer if there were more reasonably-priced guest houses.

A range of measures is now being suggested to boost the proceeds of tourism even further, in the industry which supports 7,300 local jobs.

These include:

Asking planners to allow more people to convert their homes into guest houses

Moving the tourist information centre from Gloucester Green to a more central location

Improving parking places for tourist coaches

Putting new brown and white signs up on the ring road to promote the city. Oxford tourism manager Jan Hull said: Tourism is doing well but there has been a lack of investment in the industry in recent years, so there is no room for complacency."

She said the tourist trade was healthy despite a downturn in visitors from mainland Europe over the past two years because of the strong pound.

Miss Hull added: "We have welcomed two new hotels, The Old Bank in High Street, and the Oxford Spires in Abingdon Road, but they are both in the four-star bracket and what we need is more guest houses.

"We have asked the council to look favourably on change-of-use applications for new bed-and-breakfasts." She added that a series of new measures would be introduced to market Oxford, so that people would be persuaded to stay for longer than a day.

"You simply can't do Oxford justice in a day," she added. "The city is full of lots of hidden treasures in secret corners like Little Clarendon Street, North Parade and Christ Church Meadows, which you probably won't get to see if you just stay in the centre." Specific marketing campaigns will target classical music lovers and people interested in using Oxford's waterways. Websites will also be developed to make online bookings easier for visitors.

Miss Hull said the revenue generated by the city's tourism industry was worked out by the Southern Tourist Board, using a method of calculation called the Cambridge Economic Model.

She added: "The research tries to be very thorough, so that everything is taken into account.

"The annual figure could be even higher than 250m, because that estimate is not completely up to date."

Yesterday, at Oxford City Council's employment and economic development committee, councillors were asked to consider employing a new tourism assistant to help implement proposals.