Tourism: An economic review
Tourism NI is preparing a range of measures, outlined in the Tourism Recovery Action Plan, to support the tourism industry to recover from the devastating impact of Covid in the years ahead. Immediate priorities include product development, digital innovation, conferencing and events support, website, and experience development programmes as well as a range of additional interventions from a holiday voucher scheme and continued heavyweight advertising activity.
A return to pre-pandemic levels will take time, but with the successful roll out of the vaccine programme, the lifting of restrictions and the opening up of the Common Travel Area, I am hopeful that by the end of 2022 the tourism industry in Northern Ireland could be back to 80 per cent of the activity and employment levels of 2019 and see a full recovery by the end of 2024.
Key to this will be the range of tourism interventions introduced over the last 18 months including the latest phase of the Tourism Recovery Action Plan which I launched in May with the former Economy Minister Diane Dodds MLA.
Under the first theme of business continuity, we will be developing a new KickStart programme aimed at helping businesses restructure, innovate and enhance their productivity, as well as supporting businesses maintain and enhance their marketing activity. Going forward, we will also be providing support to councils to enhance visitor experiences, develop new offerings and encourage them to use their resources to promote tourism in their district to give businesses the ability to develop.
There will be a particular focus on food and drink experiences as part of this approach. We will also support market testing and feasibility studies for future projects, and we intend to continue with our abatement of accommodation certification charges until March 2022.
Rebuilding consumer confidence is critical and as part of this we wish to see the continued rollout of the “We’re Good to Go” charter mark to allow the industry to demonstrate that safety is a priority, and that they are committed to the application of Covid safety guidelines.
Stimulating consumer demand is another area that has been highlighted within the action plan with the aim of ensuring that Tourism NI and Tourism Ireland are adequately resourced to generate demand. In the immediate term the focus will be on the domestic, British and Republic of Ireland markets, with an extension of our cooperative marketing fund.
As an island destination, sea and air access are critical to the tourism infrastructure so safeguarding connectivity is another key area through recovery, with an immediate priority to re-establish routes to Britain.
The £4.5 million Northern Ireland Domestic Aviation Kickstart Scheme (NIDAKS), recently launched by the Department for the Economy, will be essential for recovery as it aims to support inbound tourism and business travel between Northern Ireland and Britain, as well as encourage foreign direct investment (FDI) into the local economy.
The action plan also supports the industry’s request that the Executive continues to lobby for a suspension of short haul Air Passenger Duty (APD). It has a disproportionate impact on Northern Ireland and has the potential to have a negative impact on recovery.
We have chosen to focus on the need to enhance the competitiveness of the region, our intention being to highlight the investment required to provide greater access to our natural assets, while ensuring that they are managed sustainably for future generations.
The City and Growth Deals present a unique opportunity for major investment in tourism infrastructure and will build on the success of the signature projects a decade ago.
Enhancing the capability of businesses will be another key area of our recovery where we intend to support adopting digital technologies to improve business processes and productivity, bolster online presence and revolutionise access to digital marketing platforms.
Under the theme of enhancing the skills of the workforce we will be working closely with colleagues in the Department of Communities through the JobStart Programme to create new jobs and match job opportunities to prospective young employees. Through the Hospitality and Tourism Skills (HATS) network we will seek to ensure that sector wide skills requirements and career progression paths are effectively communicated and supported.
Another important aim of the Tourism Recovery Action Plan is to create a supportive policy environment, and here we seek to develop a new tourism strategy to maximise the region’s tourism potential with a unified focus on sustainability and regeneration. Working collaboratively to deliver more sustainable economic, social, and environmental outcomes will be critical to ensuring Northern Ireland’s reputation as a world class tourism destination.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic struck the tourism industry was an economic flagship, having achieved growth of 46 per cent in just six years and reaching £1 billion in revenue, of which £731 million were export earnings.
128,000 new jobs had been created since 2013, double the growth of other sectors of the economy over the same period, and resulting in the tourism, travel and hospitality sectors employing approximately 70,000 people by 2019.
Over the last 16 months, while opportunities to get out and sell have been so restricted, we have focused efforts in part on supporting the industry to create the right tools and assets for when markets reopen. We are acutely conscious however of the vulnerability of many businesses and a big test will be when furlough ends, and we move out of the summer season and into off-peak business which was more dependent on people coming from the UK.
In the short term it is likely that our focus will remain on the domestic, British and Republic of Ireland markets and encouraging people now that they can get out to see what is on their doorstep. In the medium term, we also need to take every opportunity to rebuild our short haul European markets, and longer term, supporting long haul markets to rebound when they come on stream.
While there has been some local tourism growth, particularly in self-catering, by the end of this summer many businesses will have gone through 18 months with very little income and low reserves meaning we have more tough challenges ahead.
Sustainability is also going to be key to our recovery with less focus on volume and more about value. Covid has accelerated the trend towards sustainability and people now see clearly that to make a global change we will have to do things differently on a local level. We all have a part to play and that’s only going to get greater.
Successful delivery of the action plan will require cooperative work from government departments and tourism agencies to local councils, representative bodies and most importantly the industry.
I am confident that the priorities within the action plan will support the recovery of our tourism industry to meet the needs of future visitors, create sustainable employment and make a positive contribution to local communities right across Northern Ireland.
The visitors of the future will look to have more experiences beyond hotels and attractions. Businesses that keep this in mind stand to benefit through recovery and ensure we can return to being a major part of Northern Ireland’s economic growth.
T: 028 9023 1221
E: info@tourismni.com
W: www.tourismni.com
