To ask the Minister for the Economy (i) for her assessment of immediate challenges to restarting the tourism economy; and (ii) what actions her Department is taking to assist local tourism businesses.

(i) There are a number of challenges facing the tourism economy. The most immediate relates to getting the sector reopened fully and operating safely.

There is also a need to stimulate demand from key markets, including encouraging our own local citizens to holiday at home.

As important, is the need to support businesses to innovate and diversify to take on both the challenges and the opportunities-this will be essential to sustainable recovery.

(ii) Following decisions taken by the NI Executive, Tourism NI and my Department have worked together to produce a number of guides to support businesses in understanding how they can reopen and work safely during Covid-19. They have also worked with a number of the sectoral bodies to deliver webinars to assist businesses in preparing to reopen and to get involved in marketing activity that will stimulate demand. Tourism NI also introduced ‘We’re Good To Go’, a UK wide Covid safety accreditation scheme, to the sector in 2020 which has had strong take-up from the industry and provides safety reassurance to customers. I established a Tourism Recovery Steering Group to shape and steer a response to the Covid-19 crisis. The Steering Group (supported by a Working Group) developed phase one of the Tourism Recovery Action Plan. This was instrumental in securing additional funding to help the tourism and hospitality industry deal with the impact of COVID. It has helped in terms of supporting business survivability, improving industry resilience and driving essential visitor demand.

On 28 May I launched phase 2 of the Tourism Recovery Action Plan. This Plan has been co-ordinated by my Department and Tourism NI, with extensive input from industry stakeholders including tourism and hospitality businesses. It sets out a range of actions to support the identified needs of businesses and assist recovery.

Key activity will include a range of industry support programmes and marketing initiatives such as a holiday at home voucher scheme. There will be major campaigns that will support all sectors of the tourism and hospitality industry in attracting visitors from domestic, Republic of Ireland and overseas markets.

The Plan also sets out a number of key building blocks to assist in the long-term recovery and sustainable growth of the tourism industry.

The Plan is a living document and will be kept under review as we move into recovery.