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Tourism (Northern Ireland)

I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell) on securing this debate. He is my constituency neighbour; indeed, he has the very proud honour of being my constituent. Like me, he lives in a city that should be very attractive as a tourist destination and has great ambitions and aspirations in that regard. It is a city that is well located in a river valley and has much history, some of which the hon. Gentleman touched upon. It is luckily located, with the giant’s causeway not very far away on one side, with all that the causeway coast and beyond has to offer, and Donegal and all its riches on the other side. It also has everything that the Sperrins and Erne areas of Fermanagh and Tyrone have to offer. As a tourism region, the north-west of Ireland has much to offer. In taking forward the opportunities for tourism, we must examine all elements of the tourism industry, including what makes successful tourism experiences in other parts of the world that we visit and in other parts of these islands. As someone who holidays not on the continent but throughout these islands, I am constantly struck when visiting the south-west of England and the south-west of Ireland by the ease of reference from one amenity to another, and by the constant cross-promotion of information on all the different amenities and events. That can be compared with the difficulty that many visitors to Northern Ireland have in finding out even what visitor amenities and attractions are within a 20 or 30-mile radius of where they are staying. There is a lack of integrated information and promotion to give people a good, effective, attractive tourism experience. Too often tourists are left to do much of their own work in finding out what is there. Councils and others at a local tourism level have been trying to do something about the problem, as have the regional tourism organisations in recent years. They have tried to sell not just one isolated location but a whole region, so that people have plenty to occupy them and a range of experiences over a period of days. Unfortunately, the regional tourism organisations have had their funding cut. They have now been replaced by regional tourism partnerships, which the Government tell us will have a wider brief, but which will also have smaller budgets. If we are to gear up our tourism and all the sub-regions are to play their part, it is hard to see how they are meant to do so with diminishing Government funding and the loss of some of the European money that has supported tourism projects and initiatives introduced as part of the peace programme, under the heading of seizing the opportunities of peace. There are issues that the Government need to address. It is all very well to produce documents that highlight the room that exists to grow the tourism sector, and show the relatively low tourism figures in Northern Ireland compared with other parts of the UK and the Republic of Ireland, but expansion will not happen unless we invest in it. The hon. Member for East Londonderry and others raised the role of Tourism Ireland. As one of the people involved in the package of decisions that led to the creation of that company, I stress that it was created not as some sort of political gesture or gimmick but as a marketing company to enhance tourism marketing for the island of Ireland as a whole, and bring more tourists to it. We must all work hard to ensure that tourists who come to the island experience all that it has to offer. It is not just Northern Ireland that believes it sometimes misses out on the tourist traffic that comes to Ireland. Many of the counties in the south, above the Dublin-Galway line, feel that they too miss out, and that not enough of the coach tours take enough of in the whole island. That is not Tourism Ireland’s fault; the southern half of the island simply has a well-beaten tourist track and a much more developed tourism infrastructure. That is all the more reason for us to invest more in our infrastructure in the north of the island, and particularly in Northern Ireland. Some hon. Members present were recently in Killarney, at a meeting of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary body.