Debate contribution: Hospitality and Tourism: East Antrim

Debate contribution by Mr Gordon Lyons on 11 June 2024.

MLA

Mr Gordon Lyons

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

11 June 2024

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Hospitality and Tourism: East Antrim

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4496127

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I, too, thank and congratulate Ms Brownlee for bringing the Adjournment debate. I will also mention the Royal Landing at the weekend, which was a fantastic event. The Member is very humble: she did not mention her involvement in that event, but it would not have happened without her. I am grateful to her and her team, who put in so much work to make it such an extraordinary event. In years gone by, I worked in the tourism industry at some of our fantastic attractions on the north coast. I worked at the Giant's Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, where I told people about the history of the bridge and, on a number of occasions, rescued people who had got stuck midway across it. The fear had got hold of them, and they needed gentle — sometimes not so gentle — coaxing to bring them back safely to the other side.

It was fantastic to be there engaging with so many tourists and showing them a little of what we had to offer in Northern Ireland. One disheartening element of the job was that so many tourists said to me that they were only on a day trip to Northern Ireland from the South. They came up to see the greatest hits, the best attractions, and then went back down the road. They did not stay overnight or spend much money, and they did not see all that we had to offer.

Thankfully, that has now changed. We have Titanic Belfast and other attractions that hold people in Northern Ireland for longer. Tour operators are offering longer stays. I do not want East Antrim to be bypassed in the way that the rest of Northern Ireland was in the past, but that is what is happening. I hope that people, rather than leaving Belfast and going up to the north coast, will leave Belfast and come through East Antrim. Do we not have so much to offer? As has been mentioned a number of times, we have Carrickfergus Castle, the Andrew Jackson cottage and the US Rangers centre. You can go into wonderful Whitehead and visit the fantastic railway museum there or walk the Blackhead path. We have the Gobbins, which is an outstanding attraction. Anyone who has not been there should try that out. We have so many fantastic walks and waterfalls around Larne. We have the Antrim coast road as well, which others mentioned. Of course, we should now plug Slemish as well, because it will be in our constituency very soon. I think that you will agree, Mr Deputy Speaker, that we have a lot to offer. I hope that others will see that and that we promote it. When I was in the Minister's position, I engaged with Tourism Ireland and Tourism NI stakeholders, and, on international trips, I always made sure to mention East Antrim. I hope that the Minister will continue in that vein and ensure that East Antrim is mentioned on all his engagements, because we have so much to offer. I hope that he will engage with those organisations and make sure that a plan is in place to promote what is a fantastic part of the world. We do not say that just because we represent it; we see it, and we hear it from others as well. I hope that the Minister will work with the councils in that area. We have a number of challenges in the tourism sector. Budgets are tight, promotion can be limited, and the issues with infrastructure and accommodation have been raised. However, there is one thing that we should be pressing for, and I am sure that the Minister will agree with me on this: one way of getting more tourists to Northern Ireland relates to air passenger duty. I recognise that it is outside the Minister's control, but we should be jointly lobbying the UK Government on that issue. Clear economic data shows the benefit that the removal of air passenger duty can have. We saw it in the Netherlands and in the Republic. I do not think that there is an environmental benefit from that tax being in place, because people will fly. They might just fly into Dublin instead or into somewhere else altogether. I do not think that it is a fair tax, and it limits our ability to bring more people into Northern Ireland and their ability to stay for longer. Of course, the other issue, as raised by the Member who secured the debate and others, relates to hospitality. Many of our hospitality businesses have had a torrid time over the past number of years. COVID was exceptionally difficult, and they now face many other challenges as well. It is not often that there truly are silver bullets that help us tackle the issues that we face, but one of the things that we really can do to make a change is to get the Government to look at VAT on tourism and hospitality. Hospitality businesses that come to meet me say that VAT is the difference between their being able to survive and not surviving. Across East Antrim, we all have examples of businesses, some in the very recent past, having to close down because of it. We do not have a lot of tools in our armoury, but VAT is one. I reiterate the comments made by John Stewart on rates. Even though we get Barnett consequentials, some of the discounts available in the rest of the UK are not available here Another huge issue is skills. Lots of good work has gone on in Tourism NI. I commend the work of the Hospitality and Tourism Skills (HATS) network as well. Skills are one of the biggest issues that we face in the sector right now. I hope that action can be taken on all these issues to ensure that the right conditions are in place for tourism and hospitality to thrive in East Antrim.

1,000 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:47 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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