Luxury Tourism Experience Mentoring Programme

Why Join?

Industry research highlights that luxury travelers seek unique, exclusive, private, and meaningful experiences. Northern Ireland has significant potential to tap into this growing market, supporting the ambition to grow the value of tourism to £2 billion by 2030 as detailed in the Tourism Action Plan. Often, luxury experiences elevate existing visitor attractions and landmarks, creating high-value, memorable moments for discerning travelers. This programme aims to provide tools and insights for committed and successful experience providers to elevate and expand their current experience offering and engage with a luxury market.

Tailored to each participant, this mentoring opportunity will help businesses refine and enhance:

• Bespoke experiences that are not typically available ‘off the shelf’
• Enhancements to bucket list attractions that make them even more appealing
• Custom tours and tailored experiences catering to luxury visitors
• Sustainable experiences with strong environmental and ethical policies 

What to Expect

This programme is designed to support experience providers to assess their experience offering, refine performance and set actions for development. Participating businesses will be expected to work independently outside of mentoring sessions to develop a detailed action plan and sales materials for enhancing and marketing their experience to luxury visitors and travel trade buyers.

Successful businesses will be allocated an industry mentor who will offer a site visit to your business and three further online mentoring sessions, personalised to your experience development needs.

In addition to mentoring, participating businesses will have the opportunity to meet, learn and gain insight from experienced delivery agents working in the luxury sector, with the opportunity to build collaboration, cross-selling and destination product knowledge.

Who Should Apply?

Expressions of interest are welcomed from established tourism experience providers who:

• Currently have a high-end experience beyond the idea phase, with at least a pilot or prototype already tested
• Have demonstrable experience attracting and delivering experiences to international visitors
• Are committed to developing and promoting their experience for the luxury market
• Have a willingness to invest resources to implement recommendations and scale their offering

Priority will be given to businesses that are part of Tourism NI’s Embrace a Giant Spirit experience portfolio and those with a proven track record of engaging with international audiences.

Eligibility Criteria

This opportunity will be available for up to five businesses who meet the following criteria:

• Have been in operation for at least three years with demonstrable experience in delivering visitor experiences to international visitors
• Already have a premium or luxury experience developed which targets high-value visitors
• Can commit to scheduling or running the experience at least monthly
• Can commit to all mentoring sessions, undertake self-guided learning and complete an action plan by 31st March 2025
• Hold an Innovate NI recognition or can commit to completing the framework at the offset of the programme 

In the event of over-subscription, Tourism NI will apply the following additional criteria:

• Businesses who have already participated in B2B sales workshops
• Businesses participating in Tourism NI’s Embrace a Giant Spirit Experience Portfolio
• Businesses who have not previously participated in a luxury programme delivered by Tourism NI

This opportunity represents an in-kind investment of approximately £2500 in your business and failure to complete the programme once a place has been agreed may result in exclusion from future industry opportunities.

To apply, please complete an Expression of Interest by 5pm on Friday 14th February 2025.

You can complete the form here.