Summer Visitor Figures Reflect Positive Progress in Belfast City Centre

Belfast city centre experienced a strong summer, with visitor numbers, footfall, and dwell time all up on the year before. An estimated 133,490 visitors travelled into the city centre during July 2024 – an increase of 39% on the previous year.

Footfall was up 24.1% year on year from July 2023, with foot traffic in the retail core increasing by 1.6% over the same period. On average, people spent three hours 26 mins in the city centre during July 2024 – up 4% from the year before.

The figures were presented to elected members of Belfast City Council at the latest meeting of their all-party city centre working group, alongside updates on progress on initiatives to enhance the city’s vitality, cleanliness, safety, investment and prosperity.

They included:

New retail, hospitality and transport additions, including Charles Tyrwhitt on Arthur Street, H&M opening at The Keep, Amelia Hall on Howard Street, The Ivy Restaurant at Cleaver House, Seed on Donegall Place, Voco opening its first NI hotel at the Gasworks following a £3.6m refurbishment of the former Gasworks Hotel and The Foundry boutique hotel opening in the Cathedral Quarter following a multi-million-pound investment.Belfast Grand Central Station, Ireland’s largest state-of-the-art integrated transport hub and a gamechanger for transport and accessibility in Belfast, is now open, along with new high-quality student accommodation at The Edge and Bradbury Place, as the new academic year gets underway and the city welcomes thousands of new students.

The addition of two extra Safer Neighbourhood Officers to provide high-visibility patrols, challenge low-level anti-social behaviour and work in partnership with PSNI, Extern, DePaul and others to support vulnerable people.

Council continues to deliver a daily and night-time cleansing operation, including street cleaning, emptying litter bins and power washing pavements. During autumn, this is supplemented with additional resources to help clear leaf build-up.

A packed autumn of events and activities for Belfast 2024, the biggest ever city-wide celebration of creativity.Following the success of last week’s Shadowdock spectacular at Thompson Dry Dock and yesterday’s unveiling of a new mural celebrating Oscar-winning short movie An Irish Goodbye, next up is North Star – a celebration of the city’s black cultures at The Telegraph Building from 24-25 October as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival.The Wiggle Room at The MAC is a free digital playroom for families, running until November 29, while the new Augmented Reality experience, in partnership with BT, opens today at the free visitor exhibition in City Hall.

Other city centre autumn events supported by the council include:

a family-friendly activity programme of events and workshops and a weekly older people’s hub ‘The Grapevine’ at 2 Royal Avenue

Belfast Restaurant Week from 7-13 October

175 years of the Belfast School of Art at Ulster University

Belfast International Arts Festival, 16 October – 26 November

music at St George’s Market every weekend

Late Night Art on the first Thursday of every month

Plans for Christmas animation are also taking shape and will include the Christmas lights switch-on in late November, the 20th Belfast Christmas Market in the grounds of City Hall, Winter’s Den – an enchanting winter wonderland at 2 Royal Avenue, the return of the popular Twilight Market at St George’s Market 26-27 November, a festive 5K fun run through the heart of the city centre and Tumble Circus from December 13 until the New Year in the Big Top at Writers’ Square, Cathedral Quarter.

Continued success of our Vacant to Vibrant funding scheme which has supported 26 applications to date, including the recently opened Golden Thread Gallery at the former Craftworld building on Queen Street.Grants for businesses, social enterprises and cultural organisations keen to bring vacant properties back to life are still available – ranging from £2.5K for meanwhile uses to £25K for longer term occupation.The programme has already supported 80 direct employment opportunities and will return £3.87 in rates income for every £1 invested by council.

Public consultation later this autumn on design concepts for the landmark Belfast Stories visitor attraction, opening by 2030, while a planning application has been submitted to develop Cathedral Gardens, beside St Anne’s Cathedral, into a new green park, complete with events space, an urban forest, and a permanent memorial to those who lost their lives in the Belfast Blitz.Funding has also been secured through the EU’s PEACEPLUS programme for five city-wide capital projects, including an LGBTQIA+ Hub on the first floor of 2 Royal Avenue.

94 social housing units are being developed by Radius Housing at Gasworks Northern Fringe, while work continues to progress at Loft Lines, Titanic Quarter.

Work is also concluding on a development brief process on lands in the inner north-west for housing and on a procurement process to appoint a long-term partner to deliver a significant programme of housing-led regeneration including a number of city centre sites.

The HOUSE (Homes On Upper Spaces for Everyone) programme is also currently seeking expressions of interest from property owners and occupiers on the potential to bring forward unused spaces on the upper floors for residential space and help inform a delivery model, with a deadline of October 25.

Work is progressing with DfC on public realm schemes and environmental improvements in the core city centre including Little Patrick/Little York Street, the South West Quarter around Shaftesbury Square, Blackstaff Square and the 5Cs project which includes College Court, College Street and Callender Street in the first phase and will deliver improved lighting, paving, planting and improved pedestrian access.

Recent planning permissions granted, including the conversion of Dorchester House, Great Victoria Street, to a 136 room aparthotel, a 5-10 storey office development at City Quays with 23,288m² of floor space, a 1007-unit purpose-built managed student accommodation in Titanic Quarter, ground floor retail and eight floors of Grade A office accommodation at Chancery House and the renewal of planning permission for the redevelopment with 6-8 storey, office-led mixed-use development at the former Belfast Telegraph building, now known as The Sixth.

Ongoing work with Visit Belfast, Tourism NI and Tourism Ireland, as well as the Belfast City and Region Place Partnership which is delivering a collaborative public-private sector-led programme of work to strengthen Belfast’s position in national and international markets, and attract further investment to our city.A new Innovation Commissioner, Dr Adrian Johnston, has been appointed by Innovation City Belfast partners to drive tech investment, while council continues to work with the three Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) on the city’s night-time economy infrastructure, including transport and new offerings.This week, council also launched the first Local Area Energy Plan for NIand has been supporting Green Tourism accreditation for the hospitality sector, with 75% of hotel rooms in Belfast now signed up.

Councillor Michael Long, Chair of the council’s All party Working Group on the City Centre, said: “We’re really starting to see rewards from the proactive work we’re delivering with our partners across the city centre – with new businesses locating here, new hospitality venues opening, new planning applications being submitted and exciting new additions to our entertainment offer.

“Later this winter, we’ll take stock of our current Belfast City Centre Regeneration and Investment Strategy and set our priorities for the next ten years.

“Central to this will be continued partnership working, because it will take a joint, sustained effort from everyone with an interest in our city centre to ensure it reaches its full potential.

“So, in the run-up to the busy Christmas period, we’ll continue to work with the NI Assembly, relevant Stormont departments, traders and their representatives, the Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and all our statutory, public and private partners, to ensure Belfast city centre is vibrant, welcoming and safe, with something for everyone to come and enjoy.”