TOURISM
With over 100,000 spectators expected to attend the Irish Open in July, Jennifer McKeever, vice president of the Londonderry Chamber of Commerce, said; “The tourism and hospitality sector is of growing importance to Derry, the Causeway Coast and the wider region. It is essential that local businesses recognise the opportunities this presents. It is equally important that we all work together to provide visitors with a first class experience. “With exciting events planned over the next two years, starting with the Irish Open, we must recognise that the broader North West needs to operate as a single region. It is only by doing so, that visitors will have available to them the accommodation and other
hospitality facilities that they will need. The Chamber of Commerce is very pleased to be working closely with Visit Derry to help local businesses make the most of these exciting opportunities.” The 2017 Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, hosted by the Rory Foundation, is set to be the biggest in the tournament’s history. To show what is on offer nearby the golf course, a familiarisation day to the North Coast was arranged by the Chamber and Visit Derry. The aim of the visit was to acquaint visitor servicing businesses in the North West with the global events that are taking place and to ensure they are placing themselves in a position to take advantage of
Working lunch at Portstewart Golf Club.
the visitor numbers and media spotlight. The Irish Open has a global media audience of 420 million and with the British Open coming to Royal Portrush in 2019, and an expected global audience of nearly twice that, it is key for local businesses to take advantage and get involved. Over two dozen local businesses took part in the visit which was sponsored by Airporter including Derry & Strabane District Council, City of Derry Airport, The Whitehorse Best Western, Faughan Valley Golf Club and Greencastle Golf Club. After setting off from Derry, the group’s first visit was to the beautiful Drenagh Country Estate in Limavady. Here the group enjoyed a tour and found out what was on offer for visitors. It was then a short journey to Portstewart Golf Club to see first hand just some of the preparations that go into hosting such a prestigious event as the Irish Open. The Londonderry Chamber invited members of the Causeway Chamber to an enjoyable working lunch in Portstewart Golf Club where they were able to chat candidly about how best to work together to try to extend the length of stay and visitor spend. Tourism Ireland is keen to encourage businesses to use their global platforms to reach visitors around the world and joined the group to explain how businesses can work together to look for ‘value add’ visitor propositions.
After a stop at Harry’s Shack, situated right at the entrance of Portstewart Strand, the group visited Royal Portrush in the afternoon for a tour of the golf club’s facilities and to hear how plans are currently underway ahead of the club hosting the British Open in 2019. With the golf market contributing £130m to the NI economy this year alone and the fact it supports more than 2,200 jobs here, there is huge potential for local businesses to tap into this market and really showcase what they can offer to potential visitors from around the world. The final stop for the group was a tour of the famous Bushmills Distillery, Ireland’s oldest working distillery. This busy and worthwhile tour to the North Coast gave the attendees the chance to discuss at length ideas and plans with The Causeway Chamber and Tourism Ireland, looking at how they can work collaboratively to maximise the opportunities that exist in marketing messaging in relation to golf and other niche events; how to support partnership working to cross-sell services and products across the region and how to increase business to business sales. Londonderry Chamber and Visit Derry look forward to hosting visitors from Causeway Chamber in June to show them everything that the City of Derry has to offer.
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