Centre celebrates its 10 year anniversary

The Council also celebrates 10 years of its award of City Status this year, an honour which was bestowed in 2002 by Her Majesty The Queen.

The Mayor, Alderman William Leathem, attended the celebratory gathering at the Tourist Information Centre and said: “I would like to congratulate everyone involved who has made the Lisburn TIC such a success. It is a great achievement to stand here 10 years later and have a real success story. The facility has changed and moved with changing times, customer requirements and bed nights as well as revenue in the Lisburn area have increased, and new developments are coming on board all the time.”

“The promotion of tourism in the City area is a key objective for the Council and 2012 has been a fantastic year for Northern Ireland plc. This Council is keen to be a part of the Northern Ireland tourism offer and we have worked to ensure we offer a full service, with a smile, to every customer who walks through the door.

“The Economic Development Unit has worked very hard over the years to develop and expand our tourism product and this has been evidenced by several awards over the 10-year period,” the Mayor concluded.

Alderman Jim Dillon, Chairman of the Council’s Economic Committee, said: “There have been many changes in the past 10 years, most notably in the variety of the nationalities of the visitor to the TIC. The strong promotion of Lisburn as a City has paid dividends and we have found people are much more aware of Lisburn as a tourist destination.

“Because of the diversity of visitors we encounter we provide our Visitor Guide tourism literature in English, French, German, Spanish and Cantonese.”

He continued: “Our bespoke tourism website visitlisburn.com is busy and every month we have over 4,000 hits on the website and have had 600,000 enquiries made to the TIC in the 10-year period.

“We also believe in keeping the public informed as to our ongoing projects and the latest in tourism developments and in order to achieve this we produce a monthly e-newsletter.”

TIC employees have also been involved in many outreach programmes within the wider community. This has included visits to local community groups and schools in order to raise the profile of the City. In the past twelve months the TIC has worked with some 40 community or voluntary groups.

The TIC has also been working with Lisburn in Focus to make its office more accessible for visually impaired visitors and this has led to a “Model of Excellence Award” from the Royal National Institute of Blind People.

There is currently 10% off merchandise in the Lisburn TIC (some exemptions apply) as part of its anniversary celebrations.

[email protected]