At first sight Manchester is not the UK’s most obvious tourist and cultural hotspot. Its reputation as the UK’s wettest city is more than a mite unfair – average rainfall is below the national average, and well below that of Glasgow and Cardiff. But it lacks much of the traditional physical tourist infrastructure, such as elegant city parks, river frontage and eyecatching buildings, which boost the attractiveness of rivals such as Liverpool and London.

Nevertheless, Manchester remains the third most popular tourist destination in the UK (after London and Edinburgh) according to the latest International Passenger Survey. In 2007 it enjoyed a 6 per cent growth in international visitors, to 971,000, which compares with 571,000, 304,000 and 278,000 for rivals Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle.