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Tourism (Northern Ireland)

I congratulate the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell) on securing the debate, and welcome the Minister to her new responsibilities. She could have had no better introduction to the very pleasant side of her Northern Ireland Office responsibilities than the description of the delights of all parts of Northern Ireland that hon. Members from Northern Ireland have painted. I expect that the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) will have told her a number of ways in which she can enjoy herself there—even on the rainiest of days. Two themes have come through in the debate. First, that tourism offers tremendous opportunities for the Northern Ireland economy, and secondly that both the industry and Government have responsibilities to do their best to turn those opportunities into jobs, investment and prosperity. The industry has clear responsibilities to improve marketing and to seek to drive up standards of service at all times. It strikes me, from my anecdotal experience of travelling, that tourists are becoming more choosy. They want not only to see the best attraction described in a brochure or on a website, but a high standard of service. If it is not delivered to them adequately they will not come back, and they will advise friends and relatives not to visit that destination. The industry needs to focus on what tourists want from a visit to Northern Ireland. In some cases, it will be opportunities for family breaks, long weekends and so on. Other packages might include an island of Ireland tour, which would probably require thinking in terms of north and south. The reality is that an American or Japanese tour group will have limited time to spend on the island, and that time limit will mean that they will want to scoot around to different destinations as quickly as possible. There may be a future for more golfing and fishing packages that are marketed on a north-south or Scotland-Ireland basis. A Scotland-Ireland distillery tour could well be promoted as a non-seasonal or winter activity. There are responsibilities for the industry, but clearly there are also responsibilities for the Government. I shall touch quickly on several issues that I hope the Minister will address as she gets to grips with her new brief. The first relates to a point made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) about the need for co-ordination within Government. The Federation of Small Businesses in Northern Ireland recommended that if devolution is restored there should be a junior Minister with specific responsibility for tourism. At present, responsibilities are divided among different Departments and agencies. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment has a target to raise the annual visitor spend in Northern Ireland, but the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, the Roads Service, the Planning Service and the Department of the Environment all have responsibilities, and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has an interest in promoting farm diversification. It is important to co-ordinate not just the budgets of the various Departments and agencies but their forward planning and ways of setting their various priorities, so that tourism does not always slip to fifth or sixth place in each Department’s list. There must be a regional focus on the importance of the industry. Connected with that is a point made by the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). We must remember that most tourist businesses in Northern Ireland are small, family-run businesses. People do not have time to search through acres of paper or pages on Government websites to find out what needs to be done, so how the Government disseminate best practice in an easily accessible form must be an important part of the strategy. Improving transport infrastructure is of continuing importance. The point has been well made about the lack of rail links not just from Belfast International airport but from Belfast city. There are no direct rail links into the city centre, and anybody who has been stuck behind a tractor on the road between Dungannon and Enniskillen knows that there are some serious bottlenecks in the Northern Ireland road network that need attention. A wealth of projects represented by promoters seeking Government financial support will compete for the Minister’s attention. I hope that the Government will be able to push forward the pace of decisions on the proposed international sports venue. There has been a perfectly reasonable debate about the best location for it, but a sports venue that is able to host major international fixtures would be a big tourist asset. The promoters of the Ulster canal regeneration bombard me with letters from time to time, and I suspect that that is another project that will find its way on to the Minister’s desk. There are opportunities, but there have also been warnings in some of the Northern Ireland Audit Office reports. The experience from well-intended projects such as the Navan centre in Armagh, to which many hopes were pinned, is that money can be spent with good intention but customers may not come in. I return to my opening point: every decision that is taken about tourism in Northern Ireland must aim to provide what the customer wants to spend his or her money on.