Tourism report

Tourism’s recovery and growth

John McGrillen, Tourism NI Chief Executive.

Tourism NI Chief Executive John McGrillen looks at the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the tourism sector and discusses the sector’s future prospects post-pandemic.

McGrillen admits that the pandemic has dealt a huge blow to an industry, which was riding high after a record breaking 2019 where revenue surpassed £1 billion for the first time and the hosting of the Open elevated Northern Ireland’s status as an attractive destination. much as 48 per cent and it may take to the end of 2022 to reach 80 per cent of 2019 levels, with a fuller recovery not expected before 2024.

“The road back is challenging but we are confident we can negotiate it successfully,” says the Chief Executive, who believes that putting in place the right support mechanisms, alongside the successful roll out of the vaccine programme, could see the industry bounce back quickly.

McGrillen highlights that a lot of Tourism NI’s work in the past year has been directed at supporting the industry “to stay afloat”, as well as preparation for safe and successful reopening.

Tourism NI has invested approximately £25 million on delivering supports to the industry, in addition to the supports offered by the Executive. The Chief Executive outlines that the organisation has had to be agile in its response.

“We have been on a similar learning curve to many others, discovering how to make partnerships work in an online environment and finding new and innovative ways of doing business and connecting with our industry,” he says.

Research globally shows that there is significant pent-up demand to travel. Combined with accumulated savings many households have as a result of the lockdown, the research also shows that when people are able to travel, they will be willing to spend more and stay longer.

“Any such move up market would suit Northern Ireland as we are not a low-cost destination,” explains McGrillen, who adds: “As we continue to navigate the impact of the pandemic, we want to send a clear message that our local industry is working very hard to give our visitors a warm and safe welcome back.”

With restrictions yet to be fully lifted for international visitors, the Republic of Ireland (RoI) market has became crucial for the sector. In August 2020, when restrictions lifted for a time, there was significant increase in the number of visitors from RoI. Research showed that 75 per cent of these visitors had not been to Northern Ireland before and their experience was better than they had expected.

“While it is disappointing that we may be unable to welcome large numbers of international visitors in the short-term, our local industry has a strong opportunity to capitalise on our domestic markets who will be holidaying at home for a while,” states McGrillen.

“In total, 76 per cent of tourism spend in Northern Ireland comes from the UK and Ireland, so we are in a strong position to appeal to our closer to home markets.”

In recognition of this opportunity, Tourism NI recently launched a heavyweight advertising campaign across Northern Ireland. Small Step to a Giant Adventure will encourage staycations and be accompanied by the We’re Good to Go promotion, an industry mark designed to reassure visitors of business compliance to safety recommendations.

Additionally, McGrillen announces that in the autumn, Tourism NI will launch a Holiday at Home voucher scheme offering Northern Ireland households discounts on staycations which will help drive demand after the summer season.

Recovery

Tourism is a key element of the Economy Minister’s Economic Recovery Action Plan and features strongly in the Department’s recently announced ‘10X Economy’, an economic vision for a decade of innovation in Northern Ireland.

On the placement of tourism as central to recovery plans, McGrillen says: “This reflects the fact that the tourism sector, along with hospitality, was worst hit by the pandemic. The plan is essentially about job creation; getting those who have lost their jobs back into employment.

“It’s going to be an incredibly competitive marketplace over the next two years because every nation will be trying to rebuild its tourism industry, the Chief Executive outlines, explaining that much of the promotional work has had to be done virtually, which has raised both challenges and opportunities.

“By not bringing people to Northern Ireland, they are not experiencing the warmth of our welcome which is a key part of our offering. However, using digital platforms has allowed us to reach a much wider audience.”

An example of this was the Northern Ireland showcase Tourism NI held online with Tourism Ireland for the US market. The virtual event was attended by 1,400 agents and tour operators.

“If we had have done that in a hotel in New York we would only have had a fraction of that audience,” he admits, believing that future such events will take a hybrid approach, enabling some attendees to attend online.

The Gobbins cliff path in Islandmagee, County Antrim.

Future outlook

McGrillen believes the tourism industry has been incredibly resilient in the face of the global pandemic. “When I talk to operators they are very focused on the future and have a confidence in the quality of their offering. They will bounce back,” he states.

To support the recovery, Tourism NI has looked at what needs to be done over the next 12 to 24 months to transition from survival mode through to growth. Minister Dodds set up a Tourism Recovery Steering Group and a Working Group to bring together the industry to feed into a recovery plan for the sector. The UK-wide We’re Good to Go scheme has had a strong take-up in Northern Ireland, with 1,700 businesses participating. Tourism NI has also had marketing plans drawn up since late 2020 and has had adverts made and digital assets in place. It has also built a huge amount of content on a new industry-facing website to support the industry.

Additionally, there has been a lot of research carried out to determine who will visit Northern Ireland, and when, during the recovery phase. Tourism NI has shared this data with the industry and has directly supported operators with their marketing and advertising campaigns, in addition to its capital programme to improve the quality of visitor attractions.

Looking to the longer-term, Tourism NI will be going out to consult on a new 10year strategy to rebuild and grow the sector over the next decade.

“The new strategy will look at how the sector responds to climate change, the green growth agenda and how it can be more connected to local communities to contribute not just economically but also environmentally and socially,” McGrillen concludes.

Tourism NI T: 028 9023 1221 E: info@tourismni.com W: www.tourismni.com

A ‘sustainable regenerative’ tourism strategy

The Department for the Economy has outlined plans to develop a “sustainable regenerative” Tourism Strategy for Northern Ireland as part of its wider plan for economic recovery.

In May 2021, Economy Minister Diane Dodds set out a vision for the Northern Ireland economy over the next decade. Designated as Northern Ireland’s decade of innovation, the forwardlooking plan places tourism as a central plank of the transformation agenda.

The Minister has detailed plans to focus on Northern Ireland’s “uniqueness”, those areas in which Northern Ireland can rank high in relation to global competitiveness and areas of identified growth potential.

Northern Ireland’s “thriving tourism offering” is one of these unique factors, recognising the pre-pandemic attraction of three million people annually, the policy outlines: “The vision is dependent on unlocking the potential demonstrated in our unique attractiveness throughout this decade, and therefore our tourism sector will be at the forefront of marketing our reputation and attractiveness to the world.”

The vision document is, in part, an iteration of the Minister’s Economic Recovery Plan published in February in 2021, which outlined plans to develop a new Tourism Strategy for Northern Ireland.

Tourism in Northern Ireland has undergone an onerous journey since March 2020, but hopes of recovery are building as wide-ranging restrictions are eased both on the island of Ireland and further afield. In April, the Minister declared Northern Ireland ready for the return of tourists “when the time is right”.

Pre-pandemic, tourism in Northern Ireland has witnessed significant growth. Having breached the £1 billion mark for the first time in 2019, the industry was in line for a recordbreaking 2020 before the pandemic paralysed the sector.

Released eight months after the pandemic began on the island of Ireland, NISRA figures showed that in 2019 tourism revenue had risen some 8 per cent year-on-year. A large part of this rise had been the ability to attract visitors north of the border in Ireland, with statistics showing a 28 per cent increase in overnight trips from the Republic of Ireland and a 31 per cent increase in spend from those visitors. For context, the figures show that spend from the Republic had doubled in just three years.

That Northern Ireland had become an increasingly attractive destination for the southern market will likely have benefits as the industry seeks to emerge from the pandemic, with pent up travel demand mixed with expected pandemic-driven high levels of foreign travel hesitancy making Northern Ireland a more viable option.

Pre-pandemic, the tourism and hospitality sector in Northern Ireland employed some 65,000 people in 2019. While a number of supports were deployed to assist the industry throughout the pandemic, the recognised acute vulnerability of businesses and jobs within the sector had raised concerns about their sustainability post-pandemic. That concern largely lay behind the establishment of the Tourism Recovery Steering Group set up by the Minister in April 2020.

Within its Economic Recovery Plan, the Department pointed to a number of initiatives it was already undertaking in relation to the tourism sector including the of delivery of a Covid digital innovation and productivity programme to enhance digital capability and marketing air and sea connectivity to Northern Ireland for 2021/22 through Tourism Ireland.

Other ongoing initiatives included the delivering support to the Market Access Programme to stimulate and sustain tourism marketing activity and the delivery of a Website Development Programme for tourism businesses to receive capital grants for the upgrading of their websites to make them bookable online.

However, it is the future ambitions of the strategy that are likely to be most impactful on the industry’s responsiveness post-pandemic. Alongside the development of a Tourism Strategy for Northern Ireland, the Department aims to deliver an Experience Development Programme to provide grant funding for tourism experience providers to help develop their businesses.

In May, the Economy Minister launched a Holiday at Home campaign ahead of the hospitality sector’s reopening on 24 May. It is expected that in autumn, the Department will open a voucher scheme to drive demand after the summer season.

The role of Tourism Ireland in marketing the island of Ireland as a holiday destination is to be utilised in the form of an international marketing programme, when appropriate, and a Great Britain specific campaign to attract visitors to Northern Ireland.

Central to all this, the Department’s plan indicates a desire to accelerate the development of the Tourism Data Hub to support the industry with real-time data to inform decision-making. continues to play out, some indications have been sought as to the extent of the damage so far. The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) recently published data gathered from a range of sources in order to offer some indicators to tourism performance in 2020.

The statistics indicate that in the region of 25,000 people working in accommodation and food services in Northern Ireland remained furloughed in January 2021. Highlighting the acute impact on the tourism sector, the statistics show that roughly 24 per cent of all staff in Northern Ireland were furloughed in April 2020, compared to 72 per cent for tourism related industries.

With tourism set to be a central plank of Northern Ireland’s economic recovery, the delivery of an ambitious tourism strategy will be critical to overall economic ambitions.

Credit: Tourism NI