13 Nov 2025

What’s the Story with Sustainability?

Tourism NI hosted an in-person Sustainable Tourism industry event on Thursday 13th November at room2 Belfast — Belfast’s first Low Carbon Hometel.

The session was led by Tina O’Dwyer from The Tourism Space, who specialises in enabling sustainable, regenerative and collaborative approaches to tourism.

On the day, Tina shared updates on the latest sustainability directives and resources, setting the context for Northern Ireland in the year ahead. Attendees also heard from a panel of speakers who shared their experiences and where they were on their sustainability journeys.

The climate crisis and global loss of biodiversity continued to drive growing demand for more environmentally responsible tourism experiences. As a result, destinations needed to position and promote themselves as sustainable to secure future business.

The recently published Tourism Vision & Action Plan: 10-Year Plan to 2035 recognised the important contribution the tourism sector could make to Northern Ireland’s economy. Together, we aimed to grow a tourism industry that is economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable.

Objectives of the Day

• Explored how businesses could make short- and long-term sustainability investments, even with rising operational costs.
• Introduced practical and free supports available to tourism and hospitality businesses.
• Showcased local case studies and successful sustainability projects.
• Demonstrated how to maximise impact through storytelling and marketing, helping businesses bring their sustainability journey to life for visitors.
• Launched a new suite of sustainability-focused e-learning modules on MyTourismNI.
• Signposted existing supports available on TourismNI.com and other platforms.

Who attended?

This event was free to attend and was open to all in the NI Tourism & Hospitality industry whether at the very start or well established on their Leaner and Greener sustainability journey.

This event was delivered as part of Tourism NI’s ongoing Tourism Enterprise Development (TED) Programme.