With tourism bringing in an estimated £190 million a year to the district’s economy, groups are banding together to try and ensure its town centres see the benefits.

More than 1,800 people have jobs running the area’s tourist attractions, which include Epping Forest, the Royal Gunpowder Mills in Waltham Abbey, the Lee Valley Park and the Epping Ongar Railway, as well as the district museum, churches and historic buildings.

Tricia Moxey is part of the Strategic Partnership, which includes groups such as chambers of commerce, park and forest authorities and those who run tourist attractions.

She said: “We’ve been looking at promoting the whole district, because we’ve got some interesting things.

“We had a summit in February with various different people involved in tourism and got people talking to one another, which is always useful.”

Many of the district’s attractions, such as the forest, which has four million visitors a year, and Lee Valley Country Park, which has one and a half million, are out of town centres and only accessible by car.

“It’s tricky to stop people from just driving home,” Mrs Moxey admitted. “We’re in the process of producing a leaflet that’s been distributed to various outlets, which explains some of the things on offer.

“We will leave copies at local visitor attractions and anywhere else we can think of.

“We’ll look at distributing it outside the district in due course.”

As a naturalist, she leads walks through Epping Forest and said walkers often come from as far afield as Southend and east London.

Rekha Patel, who owns The Clocktower Restaurant in Station Road, Epping, and the Epping Tea Rooms in the High Street, said: “I believe we need an advertising campaign to bring people into the area, because it’s so rich in things to do.

“Signposts at places like stations for attractions such as the forest would be good as well, because people do go to the end of the Central line just to see what’s here.

“I sell maps at the tea rooms, so if there are walkers, they can buy a map.”

Simon Hanney runs the Epping Ongar Railway, which recently marked a year since reopening as a heritage attraction running steam engines and vintage buses through Ongar, North Weald and Epping.

He said: “As we transport people from place to place, we feel it’s important for us that there are attractive and interesting offerings at all the points on our line and our bus routes.

“We see on Saturdays and Sundays the number of people going from the station to the high street.

“We’re working on improving it and one of the things we would like to do is improve the signage so people can easily see what Ongar’s got to offer.

“We also swap leaflets with other attractions.”

Tourist destinations are also listed on the website www.visiteppingforest.org, which was launched just over a year ago, and organisers are encouraging people to use Facebook and Twitter to share their experiences.