Northern Ireland tourism: Mixed picture for businesses

It’s been a summer of hot weather and big events, perfect conditions, you’d think, for a bumper tourism season.

But according to industry leaders the picture across Northern Ireland has been more mixed.

According to Tourism NI “the vast majority of tourism businesses are largely optimistic”.

But are they?

Representatives of the hospitality sector say that margins are tight and that, although the number of hotel beds sold is well up, occupancy levels were flat as there are more hotels.

All seem to agree, however, that large events are a means of growing the industry.

Tourism NI says its research “found that the vast majority of tourism businesses are largely optimistic”.

Figures released this week by NISRA , externalrecord that July set a new record for hotel bed and room bookings with nearly 40,000 more rooms sold than the same month a year ago.

But Janice Gault of the NI Hotels Federation says hotels still face challenges.

“I think the summer was very reflective of the weather,” she says. “Periods of real heat, periods of coolness and a lot of uncertainty.