To ask the Minister for the Economy to outline how his Department will contribute to the delivery of the newly published UK Government Tourism Recovery Plan.

My Department will build on the good relationships already established with the other UK administrations at both Ministerial and official level and I welcome the opportunity for the sharing of best practice that the UK Government Tourism Recovery Plan will facilitate.

Whilst each devolved administration has developed its own recovery action plan, we have been working collaboratively to support the tourism sector towards recovery from Covid-19 as there are many common themes and issues across the jurisdictions.

Tourism NI has an existing Memorandum of Understanding with Visit Britain which is working effectively to mutual benefit.

Whilst the recovery plan is focused on England, a number of actions are applicable to the industry UK-wide. For example, Tourism NI is currently working alongside Visit Britain in implementing the Tourism Exchange Great Britain (TXGB) business-to-business platform which is referenced in the UK Plan.

There are also number of policy initiatives on which collaboration between the four Nations is already ongoing:

Tourism NI partnered with the national tourism bodies of England, Scotland and Wales to introduce ‘We’re Good To Go’, a Covid safety accreditation, to the sector in 2020. In Northern Ireland, over 1,800 businesses have already signed up to this accreditation.

Tourism NI sits on the Visit Britain Data Analytics Interboard, which includes representatives from the tourism boards of the four nations. Northern Ireland is currently leading the way in this area in the development of a Tourism Data Hub, having experimented with a variety of data sources and started to build the technological infrastructure required.

Tourism NI will further strengthen relationships with Visit Britain on the issue of sustainability to ensure NI’s efforts are amplified through alignment or, when appropriate, lead the way for our closest competitors and collaborators.

Discussions are underway on the UK National Lottery voucher scheme and how it might link with the Holiday at Home Voucher Scheme that Tourism NI will be launching later in the year.

I am pleased to see that the Plan recognises the importance of business events for the UK. This presents an opportunity for Northern Ireland to build on its existing national and international conference base as the plan seeks to spread this market opportunity across all parts of the UK.