Belfast City Marketing: Strategies for Urban Tourism and Growth

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Belfast's city marketing strategy. It begins with an introduction to urban tourism and city marketing, explaining how cities are promoted to attract visitors and boost economic and cultural growth. The report then details a residential field trip to Belfast, highlighting the city's historical and cultural significance. It explores the future of Belfast, identifying challenges such as accessibility, visa requirements, and currency issues while emphasizing opportunities through world citizenship and innovation. The city marketing plan is examined, focusing on product strategies like art and design, urban sports, maritime tourism, and the Belfast story exhibition. The report also covers destination management organizations and a communication plan. Overall, the report provides insights into how Belfast uses strategic marketing and communication to promote itself as a leading tourist destination.

City marketing strategy for
Belfast

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
URBAN TOURISM AND CITY MARKETING............................................................................1
RESIDENTIAL FIELD TRIP.........................................................................................................2
FUTURE OF THE CITY.................................................................................................................2
CITY MARKETING PLAN............................................................................................................4
Product Strategy..........................................................................................................................4
Destination Management organisations......................................................................................6
COMMUNICATION PLAN...........................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
With the aim to enhance the revenue generation and creation of appeal towards any
particular geographical region different measures have been adopted. Places are promoted to
gain popularity and increase number of visits to enhance them economically and culturally
(Colomb, 2012). If Any particular place that is a city is promoted to enable business reallocation
and attract inward mobility of people towards the place to encourage tourism is referred as the
city marketing. Present report is prepared to elucidate different components of city marketing
and the strategies used by the destination, Belfast. The Largest city of Northern Ireland, Belfast
is one of the most visited city of United Kingdom. The global industrial centre is also known for
business, education, Arts, Music, food and drink and law gaining high degree of popularity
around the globe. The report throws light on the manner in which strategic steps taken by the city
to promote the place through planned marketing and communication plan by relating it with the
city dynamics in critical manner.
URBAN TOURISM AND CITY MARKETING
Urban tourism is the type of tourism in which number of tourist activities tend to carry
out in one specific city. In the given form of tourism, a city is being regarded as the main tourist
destination which attracts lots of tourists towards it. In this regard, there are different products of
urban tourism identified. It consists of shopping, religion, business venture, sightseeing and
making the visit at the home of friends and family members etc. Here, with an aim to make the
promotion of all the given urban tourism product, government of Belfast make help from the
concept such as city marketing (Lucarelli and Olof Berg, 2011). Thus, it can be said that city
marketing is the type of activity in which number of promotional methods are used for the
purpose to attract the large number of tourist towards the city destination like Belfast.
In accordance with the given context, it can be said that there is an interconnection is
being assessed between both the given concepts such as urban tourism and city marketing etc.
Here, urban tourism is the broad concept and city marketing can be consider as sub part of it. In
addition to this, the success of urban tourism totally depends upon the concept such as city
marketing. This is because, here with the help of number of marketing practices only government
of Belfast is being able to direct its efforts in terms of giving the information about its city to the
respective buyers. Herein, Belfast government make use of both traditional and modern means of
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promotion for the purpose to attract the travellers towards the city destination. Thus, it is by
complying with the given type of activity only, government is making contribution in the task of
enhancing nation economy (Zenker and Martin, 2011).
RESIDENTIAL FIELD TRIP
Residential field trip is the tour organised for the students to enable them learn and
acquaint knowledge about the place along with entertainment. The residential trip was organised
for the selected city Belfast. It is the largest city of Northern Ireland. Emerged from the industrial
revolution it is now recognised for different other reasons such as for art and design, business,
culture, music and dance and many festivals.
It is found that there are many monuments at the place signifying the majestic history and
culture of the place. These monuments include the historical buildings such as palaces, castles
and many churches giving the evidence of master peace of architecture.
The demography of the place elucidates the existence of the diversity of people belonging
to different countries of the world (Carrasquillo, 2011). There is the presence of different
religions at the place celebrating and following different culture. In this was the spectrum of
culture can be seen at the place.
On cultural grounds the place is very rich and developed such as there are many festivals
and events held that are of international importance and significance. The culturally rich place
attracts the range of people around the globe. Further it is found that there held the range of
different sports such as football who is acquiring good FIFA ranking, rugby, ice hockey many
others.
The second most visited island of Ireland is having the range of natural attractions with
scintillating scenic beauty. It has the gorgeous arches formed in the water body which are the
major attractions of the place (Braun, 2012).
FUTURE OF THE CITY
Belfast is one of the most visited place of the United Kingdom. There are range of
offerings of the place to satiate the needs of visitors in different aspects. Such as there are
different forms of tourism that exits in the industry that are for recreation and leisure, business
purposes, medical tourism, education and many other section. In that respect it is found that there
are certain that exists at the place can be cured to encourage the tourist activities and also the
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existing strengths are enhanced in the escalated manner. IN that respect different steps are
adopted.
The foremost step is to identify the lacunae that exists in attracting the tourism of the
place in the most efficient and attractive manner. From the analysis it is identified that are three
major problems that is existing (Braun, Kavaratzis and Zenker, 2013). Lack of accessibility, visa
requirements and currency issue. The location of the place inhibits the people to come to the
place in the frequent basis and repetitive basis. Due to this there is less encouragement done
towards the place to get the global status of tourism. In this regard it is imperative to take steps
so that all the process can be made effective that were taken to increase tourism. Further, the
different levels of the formalities required to be taken at the time of taking visas for the places is
the major drawback in the tourism management. There is the range of requirements that are
supposed to be placed to take visas for the place and visit. In that aspect as ell there are only
particular sections who are allowed to visit the place prohibiting a major section of the world to
have access. Lastly, the currency issue is one of the major problem faced by the visitors to the
place (YU, ZHANG and LUo, 2011). The place is operating in the euro zone which is bound to
transact in the euro currency. The currency uses other that this is largely restricted at many
places. In that respect it is required to bring changes to improve tourism activities. Future of the
city is identified in the other manner in various sections where it can leverage the benefits in
significant manner.
World citizenships
The major part that is identified to be providing the lucrative results is the step adopted to
encourage tourism of the place in the most suitable manner. Such as it is identified that there are
many organisations who are focusing on making the tourism activities more sustainable and
inclusive. It means that different steps have been adopted to bring inclusiveness and
sustainability at the place (Gertner, 2011). There are immense potential available for the
destination to bring both the elements. For instance, through inculcating the part of environment
and climate protection in the activities, making the process more sustainable that is imparting
less harm to the resources of the country in different aspects. Along with this there is the
requirement to make the tourism process more inclusive in the nature. It means to inculcate the
element of corporate social responsibility. It is imperative to take the responsibility to make
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positive changes I the climate through reducing the carbon emission. It can be executed through
collaborating with the international organisation and supporting them in their initiatives.
Innovation
In the present time, it is imperative to bring innovation in all the operations conducted by
different organisations (Pratt, 2011). In this regard to encourage the tourism activities at the
place, it is essetial to inculcate the innovation and creativity in the products and services offered
by it in different sections. It can be implemented through offering the hybrid products and
services in ll segments. Fore-mostly it is required to expand the domain of services in all
segments such as in case of accommodation there is the requirement to launch products in
different manner beyond the conventional methods.
Importance to business tourism
United Kingdom has been found that it is the financial country having significant amount
of connectivity with the different segments of the world. Belfast is developing as the financial
centre of the country in many ways. Such as there are immense amounts of opportunities
available to expand (Landry, 2012).
CITY MARKETING PLAN
Product Strategy
A systematic and planned approach is adopted to promote the place. In this respect
different steps have been adopted by the main organisation working in this aspect. In that aspect
different range of products re being offered by the place in the lucrative manner.
Art and design
Belfast is the epitome of the ancient art and culture. There are numerous monuments and
building signifying the majestic art of the place. In that respect there are organisations working to
bring improvements of these buildings to preserve for the future generation and let the present
generation explore them for knowledge, learning and entertainment. It elucidates the different
forms of arts and design in different types of products such as architecture, paintings, music,
dance, drama and many others (Kavaratzis and Hatch, 2013). In that respect there range of
institutes who are offering the cultural significant and promoting the places in different visual
and audio attractive forms.
Urban sports
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Adopting the concept of urban tourism, the place is widening the domain of offerings in
many ways. One such way is to offer the people to enjoy the place through adventure and fun. In
that regard different forms of urban sports are being available to the visitors. Fir instance the
availability of sports such as paragliding, scuba diving, canyon diving, mountaineering, forest
safari enables the visitor to enjoy the place (Kavaratzis, 2012). In this aspect, the organisations
are taking care of different aspects such as of safety and security along with their entertainment.
Maritime tourism
Belfast is the place which is diverse in different forms of flora and fauna. There are
numerous species available for the visitors to explore and see. Maritime tourism refers to the
structured manner of making the availability of water resources of the place for different
purposes. The maritime tourism is the crucial section of the marketing and communication
strategy adopted by the place Belfast. The places are available for different purposes such as
learning for the students coming from different regions to know about the range of species of
flora and fauna. Along with that there are people who come to the place to know about the place
and explore the offerings in amused manner (Warnaby and Medway, 2013). Further, different
forms of sports activities are available for the travellers such as kelling, underwater exploring
and many others through which people enjoy the maritime tourism offerings of the place.
Belfast story exhibition
Belfast has the treasure of long and evolving history. There are lot to say about the place
to the people. The place has seen the major transition in its history going through different stages
of development. Earlier it was conventionally known for the conflicts between two groups. The
struggle of bringing positive transition has been illustrated and depicted by the people in
different forms. Further, along with political history, it has immense source of the economic
history that is being altered and changed in significant manner. Such as at the initial phase it has
been one of the centre of industrial revolution which has bright changes in the lives of people
through improving their earnings and standard of living (Altman and Low, 2012).
In order to depict the majestic and interesting history of the place different methods are
being adopted. Such as there are different events conducted at the place to depict the history with
the prominent ones are Belfast music festival, culture carnival and many others. Further, there
held the drama and events to portray the history in very artistic form.
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Destination Management organisations
It is significant for destination management organization to offer various products or
services to tourist in order to attract them towards city. Belfast is a city in the Northern Island
that provides various attractive services to customers in relation to transportation,
accommodation, restaurants, excursions, conference venues, gala dinners, themed events,
meetings etc (Novy and Colomb, 2013). Thus, all such services are offered by Belfast city and
thus it attracts wide range of tourists to visit the destination which results in achieving high
revenues. It is essential for the government of the country to develop effective transportation
connectivity so that tourists can visit the destination from around the globe. It helps them to
adopt effective transportation system which can be either airways, railways or roadways.
Through providing effective connectivity, it encourages people to visit the city and improves the
standard of living of people living in the city. Also, Destination Marketing Organization provides
various attractive tour packages to people as per their preferential rates based on the buying
power of tourists and thus provide them best rates to attain desired goals. Company also
promotes the destination through encouraging tourists to visit the place because they have
luxurious hotels and restaurants where individual can find different varieties of food. It helps
tourists to get attracted towards the city as it offers them different products or services in order to
enhance the sales and profitability of country.
Company provides solutions related to language barriers to tourists travelling from
different destination so that they can easily communicate to the local people living in the country
(Morrison, 2013). It also helps them to increase their business through effectively
communicating with the tourists in their local language. Also, different language guides are
made available that helps tourists to understand the language spoken by the people of Belfast.
City markets its place as the most visited destination by business clients in order to carry out
their business meetings, conferences and thus for that hotels and banquets are developed that
attracts business travellers to attract towards the city. However, for this DMC promotes the city
as a business trip in order to carry out business meetings and conferences. Hotel also provides
different cuisines and offers it to their guests so that they can be satisfied from the quality
services provided by hotel. Thus, it enhances the sales of the hotel, as people will choose the city
to visit again with friends or family (Maitland and Newman, 2014).
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DMO also provides various other services to its clients such as organizing gala dinners
for people and assist them in celebrating different occasions such as marriage anniversaries,
birthdays etc. It also decorates the entire theme party with the help of their hires professionals so
that clients can be satisfied. Company offers services for their clients in the form of providing
them knowledge and information related to anything i.e. places to be visited in the city, routes,
best accommodation services, hospitals, essential numbers of authorities, transportation etc.
Thus, DMC counter at airports can offer all such information to their clients which help them to
satisfy their needs and thus attain results (Peck, 2012).
COMMUNICATION PLAN
In Belfast, an integrated approach is used to reach the large number of people around the
world. For that a systematic and planned communication plan is developed integrating different
elements of the tourism. With the collaborative efforts of all the components desired gaols and
targets of enhanced tourism activities are fulfilled. Communication plan is the structured way to
target the audiences by determining certain elements such as target customers, time duration,
promotion message and the process needed to be adopted. With the aim to attract the inward
migration of people from different corner of the world for varied reasons there are certain goal
determined by the management that are supposed to be fulfilled which is an important section of
city marketing. There goals are community integration, digital communication, Dual interaction,
aggressive marketing and customer service.
Community Integration
The foremost step adopted in the Belfast communication plan is the enhancing the
integration of the city with other concerned components such as residents of the city, business,
sister governments and other districts (Johansson and Kociatkiewicz, 2011). All the sections are
reached in different manners. Residents of the city are collaborated with the activities of the city
through community news to them about the happenings of different events and festivals.
Integration activity is performed in different sections. Such as firstly in order to remain
contacted with the potential visitors, the organisations of the place work in different manner.
They work in many aspects such as promoting the place, ensuring them about the safety and
security of them while visiting the place and providing high quality of services and facilities.
Secondly, the working is done through the collaboration with other districts and cities. For
instance, Belfast was not recognised earlier for the tourism purposes. But with the passage of
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time the domain of offerings got widened and improved (Hanna and Rowley, 2011). This was
developed due to its integration with renowned cities locating at nearby places. They provide
better accessibility and approach to the place like Belfast.
There are many sister government organisations that functions in collaboration with the
main tourist bodies to implement the communication plan. Such as these organisations work in
different aspects for instance, one organisation is that monitors and checks the quality of the
services performed by different organisations working in this respect and caters to bring
improvements.
Moreover, Belfast also collaborate with the business organisation to promote the place.
Such as there are many private bodies who are working in this sector like tour operators, travel
agencies, insurance providers and many others (McCann, 2013). Hence, with the integration both
the segments the quality of and productivity of the services are being enhanced.
Digital communication
The advancement of technology has led the people to derive the maximum results from
their operation. Belfast is also leveraging the benefits of inculcating technology in their
activities. In that respect to reach the large number of people, the city is using internet platform.
In the present time, it is widely used section used by large number of people. Hence, it is the
lucrative manner to communicate information to residents and different other stakeholders of the
city tourism in faster and precise manner (AlSayyad, 2013). For the purpose different steps have
been adopted by the city management. It has prepared the attractive and informative website to
transfer the information in the user friendly manner.
Further, different stakeholders are in contact through electronic new portal in which
different forms of information such as news, events and others are communicated through
emails. By collaborating with production houses and companies, videos about the place are
prepared which are aired on platforms such as you tubes along with enabling the users to have
experience of virtual tour of city. Social media networking has transformed the manner of
interaction occurred between people around the world. It is utilized by the people to connected
with the large stream of people belonging to different corners of the world. Such as in form of
social media post all the necessary information are posted in the attractive manner. In such posts
the offerings of the city along with the operational activities are shared. Place is promoted
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through press releases, newsletter, short public service announcements (Niedomysl and
Jonasson, 2012).
Due to easy and fast accessibility of this technology, the interaction between different
components has become easier such as customers and other informations seekers are able to clear
their queries and doubts on this platform, different people such as government officials,
organisations and business organisation can have meetings on the digital platform.
Dual interaction
In the present time, the places are required t promote in different and more practical
manner. Belfast in that regard has adopted the method to bring two way communication between
the organisers and the other components (Boisen, Terlouw and van Gorp, 2011). Fundamentally,
it is adopted to discuss the relevance of the initiatives taken with respect to the promotion of the
place and seek feedbacks from residents and other people. The foremost step adopted is
producing photo campaign. In this way Belfast has encouraged the sharing of photographs and
video related to the activities performing at the place such as of celebrations, natural attractions,
business summits and conferences, lakes, ravines, coastal regions, mountains and many others.
This creates the process of communicating the scenic beauty and offerings in the evidencing
manner.
Secondly, the centre of industrialisations and epitome of educational upliftments has the
names of different heroes who has led revolution in different ages and fields. In the honour of
such great personalities different events and programs are conducted to promote the place.
The two most lucrative methods are adopted by the place are conducting surveys and
initiating social media sharing (Dinnie, 2011). Surveys are conducted to seek the opinion of
people in different sections such as about the steps and initiatives taken by the government and
other tourist bodies with respect to the escalation of tourism activities and the quality of the
performance done by them. Along with that there is the initiative taken to encourage the dual
interaction through social media sharing. In this the pen discussions are being organisation to
bring improvements in the domain of tourist activities and the standards of services extended.
Aggressive marketing
Aggressive marketing is the important part of communication plan prepared by the
Belfast. In this method different tools and techniques are adopted to promote and showcase the
offerings of the place in significant manner around the globe with greater dimensions. In the
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