ACCORDING to the new Focus on the Future Tourism Strategy document launched last week Londonderry still holds the unfortunate status of Northern Ireland's poor cousin when it comes to visitor numbers and tourist spend.
Weighed against Belfast, Fermanagh Lakeland, Armagh Down and the Causeway coast and Glens, Londonderry is still a marked underachiever in terms of real tourism potential.
Figures cited in Derry City Council's new Tourism Strategy - launched last w
eek in St Augustine's Church - demonstrate that the city saw just 149,000 tourist trips in 2007. This compared poorly to Belfast (770,000), Fermanagh Lakeland (185,400), Armagh Down (601,500) and Causeway Coast and Glens (883,700).
Visitors also spent just 679,400 nights in the historic Walled City. This was once again poor in comparison to Belfast (2,890,200), Armagh Down (2,441,000), the Causeway Coast and Glens ((3,534,600), although Fermanagh Lakeland also languished on 602,500 night time stays.
In financial terms Londonderry is thought to have benefitted from just £28m tourist pounds in 2007 whilst Belfast (£142.5m), Fermanagh Lakeland (£36.7m), Armagh Down (£78.6m) and the Causeway Coast and Glens (£26.3m) all reaped substantially larger dividends from travellers.
The new report is candid in its appraisal of these figures. It admits the city is currently-underperforming but is hopeful a new Action Plan identified by Derry City Council will address this.
"Northern Ireland as a whole under-performs in the tourism sector when compared to both the Republic of Ireland and other parts of the United Kingdom. This can be seen in the relevant sector's contribution to GDP, which is as follows: Northern Ireland - 1.82 per cent; ROI - 4.4 per cent; Scotland - 5per cent; Wales - 7 per cent.
"On a more local level, Derry is not fully exploiting its considerable assets either. Indeed, the Indecon Study 2005 concluded the city was under-performing as a tourism attraction. It found that the city accounted for only 6.6 per cent of the bed nights spent across all regions
in Northern Ireland, while its average spend per night was over £2 below the Northern Ireland average. It is recommended Derry should grow its tourism economy so that it is at least 5 per cent of the local GDP by 2012," it states.
But the new report does not believe the current economic recession will have any long term legacy in terms of Londonderry's tourist potential.
"Despite the recent economic downturn, Tourism Ireland anticipates the impact on tourism on the island of Ireland will be relatively short term. However, in March 2009 Tourism Ireland predicted a fall of 4 per cent in visitor numbers to the island of Ireland during the year.
"Tourism has proved remarkably resilient over the years and has successfully overcome several serious global challenges. However, there is a great deal of work to do if we are to increase our profile in what will be an increasingly competitive market, as Alan Clarke, NITB Chief Executive, made clear in 2008., when he remarked: 'A real step change will require us to develop a culture of enterprise in tourism and invest further in key infrastructure,'" it added.
