Northern Ireland Tourist Board

THE NORTHERN IRELAND TOURIST BOARD: ATTRACT, ENHANCE, COMMUNICATE

The Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) is one of four agencies within the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) and is responsible for the development, promotion and marketing of Northern Ireland as a tourist destination. In achieving this, the NITB's aim is to ensure that tourism contributes to the creation of a dynamic, competitive economy. Our key strategic objectives are:

Attracting visitors to Northern Ireland
Enhancing the business of tourism in Northern Ireland
Communicating effectively with our tourism industry.

The organisation is divided into three divisions:

The Marketing Division - develops the demand for services and products provided by tourism businesses in Northern Ireland and manages relations and communications, actively engaging with industry customers
The Business Development Division - develops the supply of services and products provided by tourism businesses in Northern Ireland and manages relations and communications with the industry as customers
The Corporate Services Division - provides the necessary services required to make the NITB a commercially focused, yet publicly accountable, organisation. One of its main areas of activity is to develop the appropriate corporate identity for the NITB. It is also responsible for overseeing the methods of communication, which will make the organisation responsive to the needs of its key stakeholders.

The budget allocation for 2003-04 is around £9.1mn. In addition, the NITB administers the International Fund for Ireland Tourism Programme, which has a budget of £1.1mn. A further £15mn is available under the Peace II Programme
(2000-04) for event, marketing and physical-development support.

In administering financial-assistance programmes, the NITB operates a number of procedures with regard to the selection, appraisal, approval and monitoring of projects, designed to ensure that the Board applies its resources to obtain the greatest possible benefit for tourism development from the applications it receives.

Tourism in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland conjures up a set of images, ideas and perceptions, both positive and negative and our main difficulty over the years has been the global media preoccupation with our problems, which has had a negative impact on tourism. Potential visitors to Northern Ireland place importance on a peaceful and stable environment and this is a prerequisite if tourism is to achieve its full potential.

In 2000, we undertook a major review of strategy, and it was clear that we were entering a new era of change. The challenge to us as a Tourist Board was to harness that change for the good of tourism.

The core of the review was an attempt to look through the eyes of the visitor at Northern Ireland as a destination. To be successful, we had to understand what it was about us that was attractive to our potential visitors. In doing so, we developed an intimate understanding of the variety and complexity of the things we had to offer to our visitors.

The review established three significant experiences: people (our hospitality and warm welcome); place (our physical assets such as the countryside and coast); and the way of life, which provides a genuine and authentic visitor experience. This underpins the new strategy, which will capitalise on these unique and highly valuable strengths. Flowing from this will be a marketing and investment programme that will assist us in attracting visitors to this part of the island.

NITB Corporate Plan 2002-05
The NITB's Corporate Plan was produced against a background of evolving circumstances. In fact, the following factors have had a significant impact on the implementation of our policy:

The Belfast Agreement
The creation of 'Tourism Ireland' to market the island of Ireland overseas as a tourism destination
The establishment of 'Invest NI' to handle investment support for all industry sectors including tourism
The events of 11 September 2002.

The NITB Corporate Plan spans a period of three years (2002-05), and sets out the main thrust of our current activity. It is underpinned by annual operating plans, which set out in more detail annual targets and activities for the organisation. In considering the targets for the Corporate Plan, the Board recognises that there are many factors, a large proportion of which lie outside the influence of the NITB and the tourism sector.

Over the three-year lifespan of our Corporate Plan, the NITB believes the targets for tourism growth are both challenging and realistic. The average annual increase in visitor numbers over the past ten years was four per cent per annum, within which there were significant annual fluctuations. Our targets for tourism growth over the coming years are:

Nine per cent annual growth in visitor spending
Seven per cent annual growth in visitor numbers
One per cent annual increase in total share of visitors to Ireland.

The NITB's strategic objectives
In working towards our strategic objectives, we are maintaining our commitment to an equality of opportunity and working to achieve the range of objectives and commitments laid out in our equality scheme. In places where we can have an impact, we seek to ensure that the most deprived areas, communities and individuals participate in, and benefit from, our policies and actions.

Attracting the visitor to Northern Ireland
Promoting the growth of tourism in the region by attracting those visitors who will place most value on the experience that we can offer is a key objective. We want to see such visitors forming a higher proportion of our visitor total. Through a combination of attracting such visitors and providing opportunities for them to stay longer and spend more, we will promote tourism here.

To attract the holiday visitor, we must have a full understanding of who our visitors are, why they come, where they come from and what they do when they get here. We must know about our current visitors and identify those who have yet to holiday here.

We are currently working to improve our capacity to source, interpret and provide market intelligence that is up to date, usable, relevant and reliable. This information will guide the implementation of policy and assist the industry in its efforts to promote tourism. We also work with Tourism Ireland and Visit Britain to develop information on future trends and scenarios and disseminate these to the industry.

Fundamental to delivering business is an improved perception of Northern Ireland as a visitor destination. One of the ways we do this is by attracting travel media to Northern Ireland and securing positive coverage of our products, including events. We also work with organisations such as the NI Events Company and local authorities to identify and attract events to promote a positive image of Northern Ireland and to motivate visits.

It is important to ensure that potential visitors have the appropriate motivation and information to encourage them to visit. We are currently in the latter stages of developing a comprehensive tourism-development strategy to secure a distinctive image of what Northern Ireland has to offer and to develop campaigns targeted at priority market segments.

The new strategy will aim to develop further the short-break, conference and meetings markets and other niche products and markets, by working closely with our partners in regional tourism organisations and with the industry.

Having identified what our visitors are likely to expect, and having motivated them to visit us, it is important to ensure that we meet their expectations. Our focus must be on the delivery of a high-quality tourism product. A market-driven, tourism-development strategy will ensure that the image being portrayed is matched by the visitor experience on the ground.

Enhancing the business of tourism in Northern Ireland
The NITB is uniquely placed to engage with and influence organisations whose primary focus is tourism, as well as with the wider range of organisations that can influence its development. The NITB provides strategic leadership to harness the
Co-operation and energies of all our tourism partners. There must be a strong commitment in the tourism sector to improving standards continuously in order to provide quality services and facilities through training, classification and quality control. In this context, the development of people working within the tourism sector is where industry, education and government can assist each other by delivering a successful product. This will bring about long-term change.

In order to deliver a high-quality experience for our visitors, we must have the right range of products. We support our industry partners in the development and packaging of products that visitors want and which they can access easily. We will identify niche products with future market potential.

We will continue to keep under review our policies of support for tourism amenities, attractions, accommodation and events within the context of the tourism-development strategy. The NITB maintains a close working relationship with Invest Northern Ireland and advises it on the tourism-policy framework within which it will consider assistance towards specific accommodation projects.

We must spread the benefits of tourism across Northern Ireland and work to extend the season. A comprehensive review of local support and delivery mechanisms is underway, with the aim of achieving a fully integrated support structure for the industry at local level - both urban and rural. This will lead to the development of locally based 'Tourism Development Action Programmes' for identified tourism clusters, which will be launched later this year.

Success is dependent on working closely with key partners, including the industry in its broadest sense. By this, we mean the private and community sectors, local authorities, regional tourism organisations and other bodies, as well as government departments and agencies. The NITB recognises the need for everyone to be clear about their respective roles. There is also a need to raise the profile of tourism and its potential benefits collectively and to develop a tourism culture in the general population.

Communicating effectively with our tourism partners
We strive to provide an excellent service to all of our stakeholders, communicating openly and ensuring that our methods of communication meet their various needs.

A website to meet the needs of the industry is currently under construction. This will provide the tourism sector with the necessary market intelligence it needs in order to support tourism growth.

Our communications with the industry are fully participative and we continue to improve effective working relationships and our key processes. This will help us improve the delivery of our services and responsiveness to our customers' needs.

The NITB's approach ensures that tourism contributes effectively to the creation of a dynamic, competitive economy in Northern Ireland.

Supplied by courtesy of Alan Clarke, Chief Executive, Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB)