An Irish connection with Delta and Norwegian Airlines

DELTA Air Lines is now offering daily nonstop service to Boston’s Logan Airport from Dublin. The daily flight to Boston, which will operate throughout the summer, joins Delta’s existing services from the Irish capital — a year-round operation to New York-JFK, plus a summer offering to Atlanta. 

NORWEGIAN Airlines has begun new nonstop service to Providence, Rhode Island, from Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Edinburgh and Shannon beginning in June. They are also now offering flights from Hartford Bradley International Airport in Connecticut to Edinburgh, Scotland.

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Ireland on track in Spain

MILLIONS of Spaniards are seeing eye-catching ads for Dublin and Belfast in metro stations in Madrid and Barcelona right now. Tourism Ireland’s latest promotion, in partnership with Atrapalo, a major online travel agent in Spain, is under way.

The campaign aims to boost late season travel from Spain to the island of Ireland and to kick-start business for 2018. Spain is an important market for tourism to the island of Ireland; travel by Spaniards to Ireland has grown significantly over the past 15 years – going from just 90,000 Spanish visitors in 2000 to a record 391,000 visitors in 2016.

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Belfast and the Causeway Coast take the lead

BELFAST and the Causeway Coast have been named the Number One Region in the world to visit in 2018 by Lonely Planet – coming in ahead of places like Alaska, the Languedoc-Roussillon region in France and the Aeolian islands in Italy. The accolade was unveiled in the prestigious Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2018 – its collection of the world’s hottest trends, destinations and experiences for the coming year. 

Tourism Ireland plans to take every opportunity to maximise this accolade for Northern Ireland over the coming weeks and months. Its promotional campaign will roll out in 14 different markets – including Britain, the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Nordic region, Australia, New Zealand, India and the GCC.

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Naples to Northern Ireland

TOURISM Ireland warmly welcomes the announcement by Jet2 of its new flight from Naples to Belfast International Airport. The new weekly service will commence in May 2018 and will provide a welcome boost for tourism from Italy to Northern Ireland.

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said: “The announcement of the new Jet2 flight from Naples to Belfast is excellent news for #tourism to Northern Ireland in 2018 and will certainly expand travel options for holidaymakers from Italy wishing to visit #Belfast and Northern Ireland. "

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Five Stars for Crumlin Road Gaol

THE five-star accreditation was awarded under the Tourism NI Quality Grading Scheme which is designed to provide visitors with information on the quality of the experience they can expect at Northern Ireland’s tourist attractions.

Joining an elite club of only five other five star graded attractions, this accolade provides an additional marketing tool to help drive visitor numbers to the Gaol and to Northern Ireland.

Since opening in 2012 the popular Belfast visitor attraction has welcomed over 600,000 International and national visitors.

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Picture Credit: By Agadant - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7516830

On the runway . . .

BELFAST International Airport has had its busiest September ever with record numbers of passengers using the facility.

A total of 488,680 passengers passed through Northern Ireland’s main airport, which exceeded by 7,800 the previous September record set in 2007. The figure is up 73,000, or 17.5%, over September last year.

The figure brings to 3.8 million the total number of passengers in the first nine months of the year.

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Up in the air . . .

RYANAIR, Europe’s No. 1 airline further extended its Belfast summer 2017 schedule with a new route to Barcelona Girona starting in March. In addition to 10 new summer services including Berlin, London and Milan.

Ryanair’s summer 2017 schedule will also see more frequencies to sun destinations for family holidays, lower fares (as Ryanair passes on lower fuel costs), an even better customer experience as it rolls out year 3 of its “Always Getting Better” customer experience programme.

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Belfast parks retain Green Flag status

ONCE AGAIN, 15 of #Belfast City Council’s parks have achieved prestigious Green Flag status for consistently maintaining high quality standards.

The UK-wide Green Flag status is awarded to parks that show excellence in management and maintaining clean, aesthetic open spaces. It’s also awarded to parks promoting conservation and heritage, environmental sustainability, safety, and community involvement.

The parks that have retained their Green Flags are: Belfast Botanic Gardens; Barnett Demesne; Grove, Belmont; Cavehill Country Park; Dunville; Lagan Meadows; Musgrave; Ormeau; Falls; Roselawn Cemetery; Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park; Woodvale; Knocknagoney and Waterworks Park.

Councillor Matt Garrett, chair of the People and Communities Committee, said: ‘To retain Green Flag status in so many of our parks is fantastic news for Belfast. The hard work and dedication shown by our parks staff on a daily basis is brilliant and I’m delighted that these awards give proper recognition to their efforts.

‘Parks right across our city provide fantastic open spaces for local communities and visitors to enjoy and are always a hive of activity.’

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Golf tournament for Belfast

THE BELFAST PARKLAND INTERNATIONAL tournament is the first regional golf cluster to be set up under Northern Ireland’s #Golf #Tourism Strategy. It has been created by the Greater #Belfast Golf Cluster.

The annual tournament (July 3-9) will showcase five prestigious golf clubs in the Belfast area and will offer golfing tourists the opportunity of playing three, four, or all five parkland courses. It’s open to both men and women golfers.

Belfast is the pilot cluster in ongoing work by Tourism NI and the industry to develop further geographic golf cluster groups in Northern Ireland as part of the Golf Tourism Strategy, which aims to make golf tourism worth £50 million to the economy by 2020. 

The founding clubs in the Greater Belfast Golf Cluster include Rory McIlroy’s home club, Holywood Golf Club, Belvoir Park Golf Club, Malone Golf Club, Royal Belfast Golf Club, and Shandon Park Golf Club.

Simon Wallace, Tourism NI Golf Sales and Marketing manager, said: ‘Our links courses such as Royal Portrush and Royal County Down are world-famous and rightly so, but we also have a host of fantastic parkland courses, with some of the best located within the Belfast cluster.

‘Tourism NI is also committed to growing the value of golf tourism and to the development of further golf clusters. They will work on a collaborative marketing group basis to grow golf visitor numbers and revenue, and showcase Northern Ireland as a must-visit golfing destination.’

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Picture Credit: 2015 Bag</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin

Ryanair expands winter network from Belfast and Newcastle

THREE new routes to #Poland are being introduced by #Ryanair from Belfast and Newcastle as part of expanded winter schedules from both airports. Gdansk, Warsaw, and Wroclaw are being added to the budget carrier’s network from the two airports for winter 2016-17.

These are in addition to seven new routes announced earlier from Belfast to Alicante, Berlin, Krakow, Lanzarote, Malaga, Milan, and Tenerife, as well as extra daily flights to Gatwick.

Ryanair’s chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, said: ‘Our new Polish routes will be ideal for both business and leisure customers and we look forward to growing routes, traffic, and jobs in Belfast in the coming months and years.’

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Flybe boosts Belfast flights

FLYBE has expanded its 2016 summer schedule from Leeds Bradford airport with an additional daily weekday service to Belfast City from July 4, offering a choice of up to five flights a day. 

One-way fares start from £19.99 including taxes and charges.

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‘Wear It Blue’ day kicks off Titanic Belfast’s Year of Access

TITANIC BELFAST has launched its Year of Access, aiming to highlight the issue of disability access and encourage industry improvements when dealing with disabled travellers, with Autism NI’s ‘Wear It Blue’ day. 

Each month, it aims to focus on a different disability and ensure Titanic Belfast’s services and facilities develop to meet the needs of guests.


Titanic Belfast has been listed by SAGA and the Rough Guide to Accessibility Britain as one of the most accessible attractions in the UK.

Deputy chief executive and director of operations at Titanic Belfast Judith Owens said: ‘At Titanic Belfast, we are very proud to be consistently recognized as industry leaders on a local, national, and international level for our accessibility standards.

‘We have designated 2016/17 as our Year of Access. Each month, we aim to look at different disabilities and ensure that we are fully accessible for all our differing customers’ needs. We also hope that our example will inspire the tourism industry locally, nationally, and internationally to do more to better cater for disabled travellers.’

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Food NI sets out its stall for local producers

FOOD NORTHERN IRELAND (Food NI) will be offering stalls to eligible producers at a dedicated pavilion at the #BBCGoodFoodShow in #Belfast later this year (October 14-16). 

The show – which will take place in Ulster for the first time – is set to attract more than 12,000 visitors from across the island of Ireland. Food NI will host a dedicated area for local producers which will allow businesses to showcase quality food and drink.

To be eligible for a stand in Food NI’s Year of Food and Drink Village, applicants must be a Northern Ireland food or drink company with products made in Ulster, using NI ingredients where possible, and sourcing, using, and promoting Northern Ireland produce.


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Ryanair to launch Gatwick-Belfast route

RYANAIR is to start a service from London Gatwick to Belfast. It will operate four times daily from March as part of the airline’s summer schedule.

Ryanair will also increase its Gatwick to Dublin service to seven times daily from March, offering 18 daily return services in total between London and Dublin, including Stansted.

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Tourism promotion targets Spain for holidays in Ulster

COMMUTERS in #Barcelona are seeing advertisements for Belfast and Northern Ireland in metro stations and on buses on the city’s busy thoroughfares. #Tourism Ireland has teamed up with Visit Belfast and Vueling for a promotional campaign which aims to raise awareness of Belfast as a city break destination and to drive sales of Vueling flights from Barcelona to Belfast this autumn. The campaign also includes online advertising and e-marketing.

The campaign includes extensive online advertising on newspaper and travel websites. E-mail marketing will reach 1.3 million potential holidaymakers in this part of Spain and a further one million people on Vueling’s own database.

‘In 2014, we welcomed approximately 32,000 Spanish visitors to Northern Ireland, up by 23% on the previous year,’ says Barbara Wood, Tourism Ireland’s manager in Spain. ‘We are undertaking an extensive programme of promotions throughout 2015, to grow Spanish visitor numbers to Northern Ireland. Our campaign with Visit Belfast and Vueling is an important element of that programme, to boost travel to Northern Ireland during the autumn months.

‘As an island, the importance of convenient, direct, non-stop flights cannot be overstated – they are absolutely critical to achieving growth in inbound tourism.’

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Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48947735@N00/9327511442">Barcelona Estació de França train station</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(license)

Up in the air . . .

VIRGIN ATLANTIC is celebrating the first of its new summer flights between Belfast and Orlando, and has also confirmed the return of the route for next year.

The weekly service from Northern Ireland to Florida will continue for four weeks this summer. It will return at the end of June next year with a further four return flights operating on a weekly basis.

The service will add an additional 1,820 departure seats from Belfast to the Sunshine State over the summer season.

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Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41153475@N04/14806341801">G-VBIG Boeing 747-400 Virgin Atlantic</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(license)

Tallest building in Ireland to be converted into a hotel

IRELAND’S tallest commercial building is to be transformed into a hotel. The 22-storey Windsor House office block in Belfast has been acquired by Hastings Hotels for £6.5 million.

Planning permission to convert the building into a hotel of ‘major city international quality’ will be submitted within a few weeks, according to the company which has six hotels in Ulster and one in Dublin. The hotel will see the creation of 150 jobs in the hospitality sector.

The building has dominated the Belfast skyline since it was built in 1974.

The hotel will see the creation of 150 jobs in the hospitality sector.

Hastings Hotels said: ‘Tourism in Northern Ireland continues to thrive and it is ideal timing to extend our portfolio of hotels with more high profile events coming to the city as well as an increase in business tourism which will be helped by the opening of the £29.5 million expansion of the Belfast Waterfront next year.’

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Picture Credit: Windsor House, Belfast  by Albert Bridge. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

Irish Rail reveals ambitions for Dublin Airport

IRISH RAIL has revealed plans to run trains direct from Dublin Airport to Cork, Galway, and Belfast.

Irish Rail chief executive, David Franks, said the development could cost €300 million (£223.2 million) while providing a significantly boost for tourism.

“One of the biggest contributions we can make to the economy is moving people over long distances and into city centres fast,” said Franks.

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Picture Credit: "IRISH RAIL INTERCITY 22000 DMU AT DUBLIN HEUSTON STATION" by calflier001 via Wikimedia Commons

£4.9 million grant for Belfast heritage project

A £4.9 MILLION grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) will enable the restoration of the derelict Harland and Wolff drawing offices where the Titanic was designed. It is part of a scheme to develop build a four-star, 84-bedroom hotel on the site of the shipbuilder’s former headquarters building in Belfast.

The Harland and Wolff headquarters building was the control centre of the world’s largest shipyard, where Belfast workers designed and built more than 1,000 vessels including the White Star Olympic Class Liners – Olympic, Titanic and Britannic – and naval warships.

The building has been vacant since 1989 and has been considered ‘at risk’ for almost a decade.

The HLF grant will specifically focus on developing the two drawing offices as spaces for public use.

Paul Mullan, head of HLF Northern Ireland, said: ‘This is an exciting project that will see one of Belfast’s most historic buildings re-born as a major tourist destination. This, like many of the city’s historic buildings, has incredible potential to act as a driver of regeneration and economic growth.’

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Picture Credit: From Top - "H&W Drawing office" via HLF; "The Harland and Wolff repair dock by night" by Ross via Wikimedia Commons

KLM boost for Belfast

BELFAST AIRPORT is the only airport in the UK and Ireland to be included in expansion plans announced by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which will start a daily service to Amsterdam Schiphol in May.

The airport’s commercial and marketing director, Katy Best, said: ‘Attracting an airline such as KLM to Northern Ireland is a major win for the airport, tourism within the region and local businesses who will benefit from KLM’s worldwide network.

‘Schiphol is the lynchpin of the KLM network, and as one of the busiest airports in Europe serving over 300 destinations, it is an attractive superhub with quick and easy transfer facilities for passengers on popular routes such as Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mexico, Moscow, Johannesburg and Bangkok.

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said: ‘Today’s announcement by KLM is really good news for tourism, as we kick off our 2015 promotional drive. Not only will it help grow visitor numbers from the Netherlands, but this new flight will offer connectivity from other important tourism markets, including North America, Asia, and the Middle East.’

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