Tourist visits to NI back to pre-pandemic levels, figures suggest

Tourist visits to Northern Ireland recovered to surpass pre-pandemic levels in 2023, official figures suggest.

There were an estimated 5.4m trips bringing in revenue of £1.2bn.

That compares to 5.3m trips and revenue of £1bn in 2019.

Revenues collapsed during the pandemic as air travel was curtailed and businesses faced public health restrictions.

The precise impact is hard to quantify as the pandemic also prevented the statistics agency, Nisra, from collecting accurate data.

Alternative sources of data, such as cruise ship visits, suggest that recovery was already well underway during 2022 and continued last year.

Some businesses on the north coast say that has been sustained during this summer, despite the poor weather.

The Old Bushmills Distillery says it has had over 1000 visitors per day, up more than 20% on last year.

Master distiller, Colum Egan, said: “2024 has been one of the most exciting years yet for us.

“Although we didn’t get the weather we’d hoped for this summer, we were quite fortunate.”

Carl McGarrity, the director of The Salthouse hotel in Ballycastle said the Red Bull Cliff Diving Championship held at the town’s harbour brought “a host of people that wouldn’t normally come to the North Coast.”

“This year has been absolutely fantastic,” he added.

“We’ve had a lot of international tourism but also a lot of visitors from the Republic of Ireland, which has just been brilliant to have.”

Hotels are already reporting high demand for the duration of the Open Championship at Royal Portrush golf club in July next year.

Mr McGarrity described it as “another chance to showcase what we have here.”

Lucy Carlin in Belfast and Keiron Tourish, in Londonderry, BBC News NI

John said he came to Belfast to do a park run because he has been doing them across the UK.

But he is also enjoying seeing things like the Titanic museum and going to craft beer pubs.

“It’s my first time in Northern Ireland, first time in Belfast.

“I’ve found it really enjoyable, lovely city. Definitely plan on coming back again,” he added.

Vishnu is visiting Northern Ireland with his family.

They came to Belfast because they love travelling and have been exploring different countries recently.

They said they have been enjoying seeing the coast of Northern Ireland.

“We love the coastal path near Belfast,” he told BBC News NI.

And Vishnu and his family have enjoyed learning about NI’s history.

“We want to explore more of the history,” he said.

Edward, from Clearwater Beach in Florida is visiting Derry with his wife.

It’s a second trip for them.

“We love the history here,” he said.

“We came to love Ireland last year and came back because we love the people and the serenity,” he added.

The new figures add to the evidence that an increase in visitors from the Republic of Ireland, which began during the pandemic, has been sustained.

During the pandemic people were prevented from flying to overseas destinations leading to more people from the Republic holidaying north of the border for the first time.

The figures suggest there were 756,000 overnight trips from the Republic in 2019 which had jumped by 70% to 1.3m in 2023.

John McGrillen, the chief executive of Tourism NI, said there would have to be continued investment to build on that progress.

“What we managed to do was have a pretty heavyweight marketing campaign which got across some core messages: we’re easy to reach, we’re value for money, there’s lots to do.

“We can’t be complacent. We need to keep doing what we’re doing to make sure that market continues to return.”

Domestic tourism (trips made by NI residents) was the largest segment of the market in 2023, accounting for 40% of overnight trips.

Great Britain was the next largest (27%), followed by the Republic of Ireland (24%) and the rest of the world (9%).

The 9% of visitors from the rest of the world accounted for 17% of spending emphasising the importance of those visitors for growth.

A draft tourism strategy published last year says that a priority is to convince visitors to stay longer and spend more rather than growing the absolute number of visitors.

It also acknowledged that some key attractions such as the Causeway Coastal Route are “reaching capacity in peak season and creating potential frustrated demand”.

It said investments planned through the city and growth deals offers “capacity building opportunities” in other locations that could encourage a wider geographical dispersion of visitors.