Tourism plan: To increase overseas tourism revenue for Northern Ireland by average over 6.5% year on year to 2030

The success of Londonderry’s Halloween festival has inspired a new plan by tourism chiefs to expand visitor numbers across the year in Northern Ireland.

Tourism Ireland aims to will roll out an extensive and targeted programme of activity with a marketing budget of £61million.

Revealing the details of its marketing strategy to promote Northern Ireland overseas in 2024, the new head of the north south body, Alice Mansergh outlined plans to increase the value of overseas tourism in Northern Ireland by a 6.5% average year on year to 2030 – a higher figure than the target of 5.6% for the island of Ireland overall.The chief executive designate also described 2023 as the first full year without coronavirus pandemic restrictions in place and said hotel occupancy and air access having surpassed 2019 levels.

She said research indicates that the Giant’s Causeway remains one of the most searched for attractions globally for Ireland, while Ireland has been named best island destination by Wanderlust Magazine, Co Donegal made Lonely Planet’s top five global places to visit and Belfast was mentioned on National Geographic travellers’ Cool List.

Addressing hundreds of tourism industry leaders from around Northern Ireland at today’s official launch in Belfast, she explained: “2023 was the first full year of trading for tourism since the pandemic. Tourism Ireland was active throughout the year, with an extensive and targeted programme of activity marketing Northern Ireland around the world.

“In 2024, our aim is to increase the value of overseas tourism to Northern Ireland, sustainably supporting economies, communities and the environment. We will do so by inspiring overseas visitors and strengthening strategic partnerships. Our message is that Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland have so much to offer across regions and seasons. We will be showcasing iconic reasons to travel here, expanding people’s bucket lists from best-known spots to our hidden gems. It’s an exciting year ahead, particularly with Belfast 2024 providing Tourism Ireland with another great hook to promote Northern Ireland.

“Whilst there is positive trading post-Covid, we know the recovery in our industry is not evenly spread and tourism continues to face headwinds. Tourism Ireland will remain flexible and agile to face the changing environment of the future. We will work to mitigate any challenges as we shape demand to fill available capacity across the island and throughout the year. Through enhanced consumer targeting and messaging, we will win the hearts and minds of potential overseas visitors and grow the value of overseas tourism.

“Our strong partnership with Tourism NI and Fáilte Ireland is foundational, pairing product development with our overseas marketing and collaborating on key projects and activities like Home of Halloween, Business Events and sustainability certification.”

She said while there are some capacity constraints in terms of accommodation in peak seasons, there is also capacity seasons in off-peak seasons.

“Hotel occupancy in Northern Ireland is on average 84% in the summer months and 69% from October to May, that 15 percentage point gap alone is worth tens of millions pounds to businesses,” she continued. “We have the opportunity to create a longer and more evenly spread tourism season.”

Ms Mansergh said this effort will also focus on capitalising on the interest in Halloween, and praising Londonderry’s annual festival which is the biggest of its kind in Europe.

“We think spring can be a real season of green, it’s a time for exploration of nature, we know scenery is one of the number one reasons why people come here so it’s a great time to see iconic Northern Ireland gardens coming into bloom – we’ll be hoping to stretch out that spring season,” she explained.

“In autumn, Halloween can act as a pivotal moment here. Not everybody knows that it originated here on our shores over 2,000 years ago in Celtic culture.

“With our partners in Tourism Northern Ireland and Visit Derry, Derry Halloween is already the biggest festival of its kind across Europe, now imagine that we all come together and that anywhere a visitor would go across Northern Ireland in the autumn months they get a sense of that authentic heritage and history behind one of the world’s favourite seasonal moments, Halloween, which started here.”

She also paid tribute to Londonderry for “recognising this opportunity first of all”, adding: “we’re so excited to help scale the story up overseas”.

Ian Snowden, permanent secretary of the Department for the Economy also addressed the gathering, emphasising the importance of tourism to the economy.

“The pandemic massively disrupted and was a difficult time for the industry here and everywhere else,” he added.

“2023 was the first year that we got back to something close to normal after the pandemic and some of the numbers for the year past are very encouraging, for example hotel occupancy for the first 11 months of the year exceeded the pre-pandemic levels, so the sector really has demonstrated resilience.”

Tourism supports more than 65,000 jobs in Northern Ireland and generates an estimated billion pounds in revenue.