Heroes may come in all shapes and sizes – but as a rule not many tend to wear chef’s whites.
Niall McKenna is, however, the exception.
The Belfast chef has just been officially named as Northern Ireland’s Tourism hero of the year for his work in helping to promote the city and the experience he creates for visitors.
McKenna is far from an unlikely hero. He owns one of Belfast’s top restaurants, James Street South, and has two other successful establishments in the city – the Bar & Grill and Hadskis.
Jobs
He also runs a cookery school for budding award-winning chefs and so far has created 70 jobs in the city.
And he is not finished yet, as he intends to open yet another establishment – this time in the Titanic Quarter.
McKenna’s overwhelming enthusiasm for all things Belfast is just one of the reasons he deserves the tourist hero accolade – and the fact that he turned his back on a glittering career in London to follow a dream to open his own restaurant on home soil only adds to his credentials.
His passion for what he does, his determination to put local seasonal produce centrestage and his commitment to helping Belfast expand its tourism sector by offering an experience that makes visitors want to come back, is why he makes a difference.
McKenna admits that it is sometimes useful to have heroic tendencies when you work in the tourism sector in Northern Ireland.
“It has its challenges,” he says “it can be very tough. Belfast isn’t Dublin. We don’t get the same big number of tourists and there are a lot of restaurants here, which means a lot of competition, but the type of tourist we are now getting in Northern Ireland has definitely changed.
North Americans
“We’re getting a lot more North Americans, a lot more Europeans and growing numbers of visitors from England and Scotland, and that is exactly what we need.
“If you look back to where we were 10 years ago, then we are doing so much better; it’s really the difference between night and day, but that’s not to say that we still don’t need more people to come.
“Tourists are the key for us when it comes to growing our business – of course we want to get more local people through our doors too but we need to get more tourists to really make the difference to the industry – that’s what will help everybody,” says McKenna
Growing numbers
The latest annual tourism figures published by Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency last week would suggest that tourism numbers are growing.
The agency reported that visitor numbers to Northern Ireland rose to nearly 4.1 million last year.
It also said that tourist expenditure – both by local people and visitors from outside Northern Ireland – was estimated to have increased by £33 million (€40.6 million)between 2012 and 2013.
This means that overall the amount spent by tourists who stayed overnight in the North was believed to be around £723 million last year.
Given everything that happened in 2013 it would have been more of a surprise if there had not been a major increase in tourist figures.
The G8 Summit came to Fermanagh, while Derry was the UK City of Culture and the North hosted both the World Police and Fire Games and the all-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann was also held in Derry.
Yet the increase in tourists last year appears to have been mainly driven by visitors from Britain.
Additional spend
The latest tourist statistics show they spent an additional £30 million last year, while other overseas visitors also spent £26 million more than they did in 2012.
What they also show is a somewhat worrying decline in the number of residents from the Republic of Ireland who visited and spent money in the North as tourists.
In 2012 visitors from the South spent an estimated £70 million while last year this figure fell to around £57 million – rasing the question why?
The latest research also shows that in 2013 “two-thirds of those holidaying in Northern Ireland” were “Northern Ireland residents”.
So despite all the big events that took place last year, it appears that half of all the external visitors that arrived in Northern Ireland came to “visit friends and relatives”.
And the majority of people who took a holiday in the North last year actually live here all the time.
What exactly does that say about the return on all of the money that the Assembly invested during 2013 in supporting events like the City of Culture and promoting Northern Ireland as a tourist destination?
No employment boost
For one thing, according to the statistics & research agency, it did not boost employment in the tourism and leisure industries.
In its latest annual tourism report it highlights that at December 2013, the quarterly employment survey estimated that the “ tourism and leisure industries accounted for 54,370 employee jobs in Northern Ireland, 8 per cent of all employee jobs”.
Exactly the same number of people were employed one year previously.
People like Niall McKenna and the staff of the Everglades Hotel in Derry, who last week had to cope with a firebomb attack on the hotel, are the kind of everyday heroes who are working hard to develop Northern Ireland’s emerging tourism sector.
But even heroes sometimes need a helping hand and a peaceful, trouble-free summer in the North this year would be a start.