Enterprise, Trade and Investment

Part of Oral Answers to Questions – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 2:15 pm on 19 March 2013.

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Photo of Arlene Foster Arlene Foster DUP 2:15, 19 March 2013

The difficulty with the figures is one reason why tourism statistics are coming back into the Department.  As the Member says, we do not have all the information at present, so I cannot give a full picture for the tourism sector.  Latest estimates indicate that we welcomed over one million visitors from Great Britain and overseas in the first nine months of 2012, but those figures are still provisional estimates, and I am waiting for the full figures.

The domestic market and our visitors from the Republic make up more than half of our overall tourism performance.  Unfortunately, I do not have those figures to hand because they have not been made available to us, but it is safe to say that we had a very good 2012.  A record 45 cruise ships called at Belfast port, and, as of the end of February, Titanic Belfast had over 700,000 visitors since it opened on 30 March 2012.  The Giant's Causeway has had over 325,000 visitors from over 130 countries from July 2012 to the start of January 2013.  Those are very good statistics, but we will have the full statistics in May.