I have posted various articles about Northern Ireland’s
potential as an activity tourist destination. Now I think the time is right to
start to look at the specifics, particularly a deep dive into the potential of
those regions which have all the right ingredients to turn them into outdoor
activity meccas. You know the type of place I’m talking about, those areas
blessed with fabulous scenery combined with the infrastructure to take
advantage should we ever get it together and start to fully exploit the untapped
potential literally staring everyone in the face.
There probably won’t be any surprises here. Northern Ireland
is a small place, yet contains an amazing variety of scenery. Certain audience sectors of
the tourism market are already pretty well catered for, so most of the places I’ll
look at will already have fairly well developed tourism infrastructure, at least by Northern Ireland standards; there is no comparison to be made with wider UK, Ireland, or European tourism. What
will become apparent, however, is that the outdoor activity sector is by and
large mainly untapped, and that its growth is being resolutely strangled and curtailed by poor access legislation. It will become obvious that, with a bit of imagination and political
courage/will, the economic and social benefits payoff to 'cutting away the red tape', so to speak, could be huge.
We’ll take each area in turn, and centre analysis round the
key ‘gateway’ towns and villages. For example, think about the English Lake
District. Ok, a big area and the ultimate example of how countryside access is completely intertwined with the local economy. Now what are the key ‘gateway’ destinations in this area; those
places with shops, accommodation, services etc. which can cater for large
number of tourists. Effectively, what are the main hubs in this area which people
flock to, even if their main goal is to enjoy a weekend or a week of walking,
canoeing, or mountain biking? It is an easy answer if you know the area - Keswick, Ambleside, Windermere-Bowness, Coniston,
Hawkshead. You get the idea.
Except in Northern Irish terms, no area is as well developed
as the Lake District. There are multiple reasons why this should be, but the
biggest is single fact that the countryside of the Lake District is accessible in
a way that no part of Northern Ireland currently is. Its whole economy is built
on the bedrock of accessibility, catering for a wide variety of differing
markets; mountaineers who want to climb the highest peaks, hill walkers who
want to walk across the hills for most of the day, to families and pensioners who
are happy wandering a wood, strolling around a lake, or rambling a river bank
path.
Some of the gateway areas might seem obvious, but others are
less so due to a number of reasons, but mainly due to a lamentable lack of countryside access locally, combined with a
failure to recognise potential and subsequently develop and exploit it.
The main areas I will look at over a long series of articles
are as follows:
North Antrim Coast and Glens
Strangford and Ards Peninsula
The Mournes and Slieve Croob
Fermanagh Lakelands
The Sperrins and Binevenagh
Lough Neagh and The River Bann
There is a fairly eclectic mix of landscape represented
across these six regions. Some are doing better than others when it comes to activity tourism. We can look at why this is so (clue, might have something to do with the amount of formally accessible countryside). The last area listed, Lough Neagh and the Bann, isn’t a region as such I suppose, given
that the Bann flows for 90 miles north though the centre of Northern Ireland,
but it seemed a natural fit to group them together for what I hope are fairly
obvious reasons.
