32% granted towards tourist schemes

A total of £3,986,686 in grant aid was pumped into Londonderry tourist schemes by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI), 32 per cent of the £12,409,576 overall expenditure on five projects over 2011 and 2012.

The largest grant of £1,426,686 made up 71 per cent of the total project cost for the Walled City Lighting Strategy whilst DETI provided £2.5m (26 per cent) towards the restoration of the Guildhall.

The Tourism Minsiter also made smaller contributions towards the Londonderry tourism bonanzas of Hallowe’en and the City of Derry Jazz Festival. In 2011 she provided £30k towards the £285k spent on the City of Derry Jazz Festival (11 per cent) and in 2011 she provided £10k towards the £231k spent on the Banks of the Foyle Hallowe’en Carnival (4.32 per cent).

This year she has allocated £20k towards a projected spend of £274k on the Hallowe’en carnival (7 per cent).

Ms Foster provided details for the amount of grant aid provided to each local council for tourism projects in the last two years in response to an Assembly Question.