‘Peace tourism’ hoped to fuel plan to double visitor revenue in Northern Ireland
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Peace tourism is hoped to aid a plan to almost double income from visitors to Northern Ireland over the next decade. A new Tourism Vision and Action Plan has set a target of increasing tourism expenditure from overnight visitors to more than £2 billion by 2035.
This would be almost double the statistics that show tourism expenditure for 2023 was at a record £1.2 billion. However, there is also concern that the UK’s new visa waiver scheme, the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), will challenge the efforts to grow tourism numbers.
All non-European visitors to the UK who do not have residency rights and who do not require a visa need to purchase an ETA in advance. From April 2, European visitors will also need the digital travel permission, which costs £10 and is linked to a traveller’s passport. It does not apply to Irish citizens travelling into Northern Ireland who are exempt under the Common Travel Area arrangements.
Stormont Economy Minister Conor Murphy said the tourism target is “ambitious but achievable”. “There is no doubt that that (ETA) casts a cloud over this,” he said. “We were working on this tourism strategy, we were lobbying the British Government to change their view in terms of bringing in a travel authorisation issue. They have moved with it. We will continue to lobby them to point out that it is a bad idea, a bad idea for Ireland, and for international tourism on the island of Ireland.
