Tourism being hit by lack of co-ordination

Tourism being hit by lack of co-ordination

7 December 2016

A DOWNPATRICK councillor has claimed there is a lack of “joined up thinking” in tourism promotion within Newry, Mourne and Down Council.

Councillor Cadogan Enright told a meeting of the full council on Monday there were “grave inadequacies” in the funding and support of local tourism initiatives which was preventing the development of a co-ordinated tourism promotion strategy for the district.

Among the concerns highlighted by the councillor were:

• Funding for small community events is often not being confirmed until just days before the event is due to take place, such as the Christmas Carol Ships Festival in Strangford Lough last week. He said Ards and North Down Council confirmed its support for the event on the Portaferry side of Strangford Lough in June, but Newry, Mourne and Down Council did not confirm support for events in Strangford until just two weeks ago.

• Funding for small events comes from the Active and Healthy Living Department of the council while funding for major events comes from the Enterprise, Regeneration and Tourism Department and little co-ordination appears to take place between the two departments.

• The co-ordination and planning of events between the two departments on a 12-14 month programme is “non-existent.” Because of this lack of planning many tourist events take place at the same time and are therefore competing for visitors.

Councillor Enright attempted to bring forward a motion to the full council meeting seeking a discussion of the problem but was blocked by council chairwoman, Gillian Fitzpatrick, who refused to allow discussion and referred the motion to the Enterprise, Regeneration and Tourism Committee.

Councillor Enright, and his fellow Downpatrick councillor, Naomi Baillie, who supported his motion, claimed in a joint statement afterwards that the chairwoman’s ruling was an attempt to “hide inadequacies in managing tourism events from south Armagh to Killyleagh.”

Mr Enright said the council has had over two years to sort out the problem and because it concerned more than one department it needed to be debated in full council to ensure “joined up thinking.”

Councillors Enright and Bailie were supported by Newry politician, Davy Hyland, who said the decision not to allow the motion to be debated on Monday night was tantamount to “stifling debate.”

Mr Enright said the central plank of his motion was the fact that villages and towns rely heavily on tourism and need to plan ahead but were finding it difficult to do so because of the inordinate delay in confirming funding allocations.

“Organising committees only find out if their funding applications have been successful just weeks, or in some cases days, before events are due to start. This is unacceptable,” he said.

“Local villages, heavily dependent on tourism, need to plan ahead to be able to publish a schedule of events with the media and Tourism NI. In addition, they need to be able to book venues and shows or hire requisites and mobilise community volunteers.”

Councillor Enright said there is a need for council departments to work better together, co-ordinating and planning tourism events across the district, with this work taking place at least one year before start dates.

Councillor Bailie said funding for festivals and community events is organised on time frames that are “way too short.” She said some money is being made available only weeks before actual events, making organisation difficult as with the Carol Ships event last weekend.

She added: “To add to the complexity and confusion surrounding council-supported tourism events, different streams of funding are provided by different departments in council who appear not to co-ordinate their work or their dates in a given area.”