Support programme for tourism businesses in Northern Ireland
Tourism Northern Ireland and Tourism Ireland have partnered to support Northern Ireland tourism business to secure international business for future years.
The Northern Ireland Industry Market Access Programme (NI IMAP) is funded through the Tourism Recovery Action Plan and will operate on a pilot basis from 4 October 2021 to 31 March 2022.
The programme specifically aims to support overseas business-to-business (B2B) activity in group leisure; meetings, incentives, conferences and events (MICE); golf and luxury.
The NI IMAP aims to:
- to support the recovery of Northern Ireland tourism businesses by enabling greater access to core overseas markets as outlined in the Tourism Recovery Action Plan.
- to make it easier for overseas trade partners and consumers to access and buy Northern Ireland product as broadly and widely as possible
- to enable Northern Ireland industry to augment Tourism Ireland’s marketing activities in target markets with sales activity that is focussed on retaining or closing the sale for Northern Ireland
- to fulfil the governments’ primary objective for the sector which is to maximise revenue from overseas tourism through Northern Ireland achieving its full potential as a destination for inbound visitors
- to ensure that the Northern Ireland’s industry has sufficient marketing support to gain competitive stand out in what will be an increasingly competitive global market
Eligible activity includes:
- Support to attend in-person Tourism Ireland or Tourism NI led overseas platforms aimed at B2B / group leisure, luxury and golf– subject to the industry being successful via the usual Tourism NI recruitment process
- Support to attend other in-person B2B and group leisure, luxury and golf overseas platforms not led by Tourism Ireland or Tourism NI for which the usual recruitment process does not apply – with estimated number of expected meetings or appointments.
- Support to attend in-person Tourism NI or Tourism Ireland led MICE overseas platforms – subject to the industry being successful via the usual Tourism NI recruitment process .
- Support to undertake independent B2B and MICE sales calls in key markets. (an average of four sales calls per day minimum is expected, excluding travel days).
Key Information
Details of the funding are as follows:
- Up to 80 per cent of total eligible costs will be reimbursed by the funding agencies i.e. industry will be required to pay 20 per cent
- Minimum amount of funding per application = £1,600 i.e. we will not fund any activity that costs less than £2,000 in total with the funding agencies paying 80 per cent = £1,600
- Maximum amount of funding awarded per application = £6,500 in total i.e. up to 80 per cent or £6,500 whichever is the lower.
- One submission per business per application period.
- Businesses which applied successfully under Phase I of the IMAP may submit a new application for additional activity; they may not make a second application for activity already approved in Phase 1.
Applications open until 30 November 2021.
Source: nibusinessinfo
