BLACKPOOL, England >> Blackpool’s coat of arms highlights the motto “Progress.”

But there had been little of that until recently in this Victorian-era showcase, where thousands of Britons, freed from their factory jobs for a week, once came with their families to breathe the fresh sea air, to take in the penny arcades and intricate streetlights and to drink cheap beer.

The city’s heyday was from the late 1950s through the early 1980s. But with deindustrialization in the north, cheap foreign travel and the growing popularity of tourist packages for places like Manchester and Birmingham, as well as London and Paris, Blackpool fell into decline.

Many of the old bed-and-breakfast inns along the city’s seafront had either deteriorated or shut, the attractions had faded and become dated, and young people had stayed away. Even the two main political parties in Britain, which often came to Blackpool for yearly conferences, stopped coming in 2007.

Now the city is trying to reinvent itself as a seaside resort for the modern age. It also hopes to take advantage of a possible consequence of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union: an increase in the number of Britons who choose not to vacation abroad.

Since 2007, Blackpool has invested 450 million pounds (about $588 million) in improved transportation and a modernized seafront. The city has spruced up its main attractions, and has promoted punk-rock festivals and better theater. It has reinvigorated the Victorian backbone of the resort, remodeling both the Winter Gardens — with its opera house, theater and ballroom, which once hosted the political conferences — and the city’s landmark iron tower. And it has attracted more upscale hotels and restaurants.

Blackpool is also trying to attract visitors of all kinds, including a significant number of Muslims who live and work in nearby cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool.

The Sandcastle Waterpark, Britain’s largest, is a good example of Blackpool’s effort to reinvent itself.

Cannes, France, may have banned the “burkini,” a full-body swimsuit designed for Muslims, but Sandcastle happily rents or sells them. It has staff members who speak Asian languages, such as Urdu, to attract Muslim families. It also has staff trained to welcome and help both autistic and disabled visitors, promoting “accessible tourism.”

John Child, the managing director of Sandcastle, said that the park had the capacity to receive about 80,000 visitors per month, and that it was considering expansion.

“Accessibility is an important part of domestic tourism, especially with an aging society,” he said. “It’s worth millions.”

With a drop of more than 10 percent in the value of the pound since Britain’s so-called Brexit vote June 23 to withdraw from the European Union, vacations abroad have suddenly become significantly more expensive for working-class families who might have considered a trip to France, Spain or Italy. Then there is fresh anxiety, too, about terrorism on the Continent.

“We’re reminding people that the value of their pound in Blackpool is exactly the same as it was in June,” said Alan Cavill, the director of tourism for Blackpool, which is almost wholly reliant on domestic visitors. Only about 1 percent of its 17 million visitors each year come from outside Britain.

A market-research firm, GfK, said that because of the Brexit referendum and renewed fears of terrorism abroad, 20 percent of Britons — and 30 percent of those with higher incomes — were more likely to consider either domestic holidays or short breaks.

A survey by Britain’s Automobile Association suggested that one in every 14 people who had intended to vacation abroad, especially families and students, had abandoned those plans. Half of those surveyed said they would switch their vacations to Britain.

In June, more than two-thirds of those voting in Blackpool opted to leave the European Union, even though the city had received 25 million pounds in European aid since 2005 to help modernize the seafront, repair sea walls, renovate the seafront tramway and improve the Winter Gardens and Blackpool Tower. Both the Winter Gardens and the tower were bought by the city in 2010, but are operated by private companies like Merlin Entertainments, which owns Madame Tussauds, Legoland and the London Eye.

At 518 feet tall, Blackpool’s tower opened in 1894, just five years after the Eiffel Tower, which inspired it. By 1899, it was already being fancied up in response to successful tourism.

The tower’s base contained a zoo with lions and tigers and, in 1904, 40 polar bears. It featured a purpose-built circus with Orientalist décor that is still in constant use (though now without animals), complete with its working Victorian-era hydraulics, which allow the ring to descend into a pool of water; a gilded ballroom, where couples still go to eat and dance; and, of course, the viewing platform at the top, providing long sightlines over the city, the beachfront promenade and the cold Irish Sea.

The old Blackpool is still here — penny arcades, still popular with children; the Pleasure Beach amusement park; beer at 1.95 pounds per pint; the smell of fish and chips; and signs that advertise “news and booze” and “slots of fun.” There are even some people who come wanting to spend more on beer than on their accommodations.

But Blackpool is not catering to a class of tourists that no longer really exists. Instead the city is trying to lure more visitors for stays of three nights or more, while promoting better hotels and fewer old-fashioned bed-and-breakfast places. The council is planning an extension of the modern tramway from the railway station to the beach and a modern conference center — complete with air conditioning — that would be attached to the Winter Gardens, hoping to again attract political party conventions.

There is both a toughness and a sweetness here, a strong regional and class consciousness and pride.

Even as the Blackpool Tower spiffs itself up — with a 4D movie featuring diving gulls and sea spray, and costing more than 860,000 pounds (around $1 million) — there is nostalgia, too, with its circus and ballroom and its sense of a prettified past. It attracts nearly 9,000 visitors each day.

A photo from 1929 on the wall of the tower features three young women in summer dresses, with their hair blowing and smiles on their faces, standing with the tower in the background. One of the young women is Lillian Bullen. Her granddaughter Kate Shane manages Merlin Entertainments’ Blackpool offerings.

Shane remembers Lilly, who lived to be 95, with great fondness. “I have strong memories of her as a kid, going to the circus with the performing animals,” Shane said. “And I remember going with her to Roberts’ Oyster Bar,” a famous wood-paneled restaurant that opened in 1876, but is today reduced to a shabby, shopfront shellfish stall.

And now the photo of Lilly is available on a tea towel, and a pretty mug made in Thailand — both for sale in the gift shop.

© 2016 The New York Times Company