� IN FOCUS l IRELAND
Wall murals in Belfast and (inset) Ulster Museum’s Game of Thrones tapestry
Belfastbuzz
Tourism to Northern Ireland and its capital Belfast is booming, thanks to awareness of its links to the Titanic and Game of Thrones. Samantha Mayling reports
14 TravelGBI | April 2018 T
ourism bosses in Northern Ireland have good reason to be optimistic.
Over the past 10 years, the destination
has invested £100 million in developing ‘blockbuster’ attractions such as Titanic Belfast, HMS Caroline and the Seamus Heaney HomePlace. This investment has helped drive
unprecedented levels of hotel growth to accommodate Northern Ireland’s growing tourist numbers. There were a record 4.6 million visitors in 2016, and figures gathered so far for 2017 suggest it will have been Northern Ireland’s busiest year yet for tourism. The tourism body Tourism Northern
Ireland estimates £500 million will be invested in the accommodation sector by
Nowhere tells the Titanic story like Titanic Belfast…and ‘Throneys’ are coming in their droves to see Game of Thrones locations
2020, with more than 2,000 new rooms coming on stream by the end of this decade. Hotel room numbers in Belfast are
growing at the fastest rate in the UK to accommodate this rising demand – with the development of major properties such as the 304-room Grand Central, 237-room Maldron Hotel, 178-room Hampton by Hilton and 188-room AC Marriott. Existing hotels are also adding or
refurbishing rooms, including Fitzwilliam, Bullitt, Holiday Inn Express and Jurys Inn.
Eimear Callaghan, business solutions manager at Tourism NI, said global recognition of the Titanic Belfast museum and the Game of Thrones TV
travelgbi.com
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