MERSEYTRAVEL is now a big hitter in the Liverpool City Region's tourism economy.

Last year, we contributed £34m and created 743 full- time equivalent jobs in the area.

There's more to come because we are currently in talks with Wirral Borough Council as the preferred bidder to acquire the Pacific Road Arts Centre, Taylor Street Transport Museum and the historic Birkenhead Tramway.

For those who may be puzzled as to why Merseytravel is involved in tourism, the answer is simple.

It was a strategy launched to safeguard the future of the Mersey Ferries.

Back in the 1930s, Mersey Ferries carried in the region of 33m passengers a year, but, with the advent of the second Mersey Tunnel, the rise of the car, the decline of the Port and the provision of reliable cross-river rail journeys, the numbers fell rapidly year by year.

It became obvious that we could not continue with just a simple cross-river commuter service even though, under the ferries’ Charter, we have an obligation to do so.

To discontinue the service would have required an Act of Parliament, which would have been as difficult to get onto the statute book as it would have been unacceptable to the people of Merseyside.

We could have down-sized the business, but I decided the answer was to continue to invest in the ferries with the emphasis on tourism.

Today, with the addition of the Beatles Story, Spaceport and The U-Boat Story, the Mersey ferries are the most popular paid-for tourism attraction in the region.

The independent survey on the economic impact of our attractions was produced by England's Northwest Research Service – and it was conducted last year at the height of the current economic crisis.