Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way and two other tourism features may get even bigger by extending across the border into Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland Economy Minister, said that discussions could lead to linking the Wild Irish Way, a scenic routes along the west coast of Scotland with Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coastal Route, which starts in the west and loops around to end near Belfast.
Two other promotion areas that could be linked, he said, were Ireland’s Ancient East that could extend into northern counties Downpatrick and Armagh, and a link between the Hidden Heartlands with County Fermanagh.
The minister, Conor Murphy, said that tourism is one of the big successes of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, and pledged to increase funding for tourism, saying that recent budgets had left it underfunded. He also pointed out that 70% of overseas visitors to Northern Ireland come through the Republic of Ireland because there are no trans-Atlantic air routes directly to Belfast.
