To ask the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment for an update on the measures in place to ensure the effective transfer of tourism powers to the new district councils.

The Tourism (NI) Order 1992 provides Councils with the necessary powers to undertake local tourism functions.

DETI, through Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) and Tourism Ireland, is working with local councils to develop and promote local tourism by focusing on our 9 key tourism areas.

Councils are now taking the lead in the development of Tourism Area Plans for the 9 key tourism areas and this work will be integrated into the new Councils’ Community Planning responsibilities from next April. Significant work has already been undertaken by the NITB and local authorities on a cross-council basis in each of the nine areas and NITB has met recently with a number of the Chief Executives of the new Councils. This partnership approach is ongoing and NITB will seek to put in place effective formalised working relationships with the new Councils as Local Government reform progresses.

Giving Councils the lead in developing these tourism area plans clarified their lead role in many of the functions previously listed for transfer under the Review of Public Administration such as local marketing, local product development, visitor servicing and development of the sector at local level. The remaining list of tourism functions to be transferred to Councils is:

Providing business support to tourism businesses including business start up advice along with training and delivery of customer care schemes. This includes small-scale tourism accommodation development. This is included in the arrangements with Invest NI for the transfer of business start programmes;

Providing advice to developers on tourism policies and related issues. Councils will take the lead in this advice role from April 2015.