Titanic Foundation Celebrates Tenth Year with Exciting Plan for Titanic Quarter

By creating an iconic heritage waterfront, bringing the stories and the vast heritage surrounding the destination to life, the TQ Destination Plan aims to support Belfast and Northern Ireland  to achieve its full tourism potential.

Over the past 10 years the organisation has celebrated key successes including the delivery of Titanic Belfast, which has welcomed over 4 million visitors generating a local economic impact of £160 million, taking ownership of the SS Nomadic and incorporating it into the Titanic Belfast experience, the restoration of the H&W Drawing Offices into Titanic Hotel Belfast and the rehoming of Mew Lighthouse Optic, one of the rarest lighthouse optics in the world.

Building on these successes, over the next 5-10 years the TQ Destination Plan ambition is to help the area realise its full potential as a tourism destination. It identifies 12 key projects under 3 core themes – connectivity, visitors and heritage. Projects include the development of a Maritime Mile which links the waterfront from Donegall Quay to the tip of Queen’s Island, improved digital infrastructure to inspire visitors with stories of the part through their mobile phone and to continue the preservation and restoration of unique heritage assets such as Thompson’s Dry Dock and the 3 ‘wee’ steam cranes that worked along the tracks during the shipyards heyday.

The plan was developed with input from Belfast City Council, Belfast Harbour Commission, Tourism NI Titanic Quarter Limited, Odyssey Trust and a range of organisations on the Titanic Quarter Destination Forum.  It is these private and public sector organisational partnerships, amongst others, which will be key to the realisation, delivery and implementation of the ambitious plan.

Chair of Titanic Foundation Ltd, Nicky Dunn, said;
“We are delighted to be celebrating our tenth anniversary and what a journey it has been. Our organisation has been at the forefront of delivering some of the most iconic maritime and industrial heritage projects in Northern Ireland. Whilst we celebrate these key successes with key stakeholders and supporters who helped us realise, deliver and implement these projects; we wanted to use this pivotal moment in our organisational history to set out the possibilities and options for the long-term development of Titanic Quarter as a tourism destination.  Engaging with a wide range of stakeholders, integrating into current planning developments as well as reviewing and identifying best practise across other international cities, the Titanic Quarter Destination Plan presents a series of interventions which will help position Belfast’s waterfront as a truly international, iconic, appealing and memorable experience for local people and visitors.”

For the full Titanic Quarter Destination Plan click here.