A couple of years back we produced a destination narrative for Belfast as part of the City Council’s Cultural Strategy 2020-30 A City Reimagining. Now, we’re back reviewing how the city should be positioned to reflect it’s importance as a gateway to Northern Ireland as part of its tourism strategy and how it offers some of the most distinctive, intriguing and thought-provoking experiences for visitors of any European city. It rewards exploration a hundred-fold.
Our work involves looking at how Belfast is currently portrayed and the wider ambitions for the city enabled by the City Region Deal as part of their new tourism strategy.
Photo by Nick Hawkes on Unsplash
We’re reviewing markets and trends, including the implications for post-pandemic recovery. We’re considering the brand development work for the Belfast City brand and the new experience brand Embrace A Giant Spirit developed by Tourism Northern Ireland. We’re also learning from other cities including Rotterdam, Gothenburg, Bordeaux and Glasgow.
Our aim is to come up with a clear, consistent and compelling positioning for Belfast aligning with the wider brand architecture for Northern Ireland and Ireland. We’ll be making recommendations on putting the positioning into practice, considering roles and responsibilities and specific action around bringing Belfast’s stories to life, creative use of digital and activating Belfast’s gateway role.
Belfast is so much more than many expect – and we are delighted to be playing our part in realising this.