Hospitality and Tourism
Voted the number one region to visit in the world by Lonely Planet in 2018, Belfast has continued its meteoric rise as an increasingly popular city and short break, conference and cruise destination.
Tourism is recognised as one of Belfast’s key success stories.
Over the last 20 years, our city’s economic, social and cultural sectors have been transformed. Belfast is an international destination. This re-imagining is attributable in large measure to the city’s increasingly dynamic and burgeoning tourism industry. Multi-million pounds of investment in Belfast’s tourism infrastructure, attractions, hotels and hospitality venues has brought accolades including the World’s Leading Tourist Attraction Titanic Belfast (link opens in new window) in 2016, and Cruise Critic’s Best Port of Call in UK and Ireland. With a wide range of purpose-built venues and academic venues, and unique and unusual meeting and events spaces, Belfast has also been recognised as the world’s best conference and events destination at the annual C&IT Awards gala for four out of the last five years (up to and including 2023).
In 2023, Belfast welcomed 158 cruise calls, and around 320,000 cruise visitors, as part of a ‘Britain and Ireland’ or Northern European cruise itinerary, generating around £20million tourism spend and making it one of the most popular cruise destinations in Northern Europe.
Tourism and Regeneration is one of the four key pillars of our ambitious 10-year £1billion Belfast Region City Deal (link opens in new window) programme of investment. Seven key projects, including the landmark Belfast Stories (link opens in new window) visitor experience due to open in 2029, are all aimed at encouraging visitors to stay longer and explore more across the entire region.
For more information, go to Visit Belfast (link opens in new window).
