WITH the tourist season in full swing, it may seem like it’s busier than usual with visitors about, but recent figures show tht not one single place in Fermanagh was among the most visited attractions in the North last year, and even when it came to natural attractions, such as forests, the county still failed to register.
Around 11.5 million people visited the North in 2018, and of that over a million visited the Giant’s Causeway. Titanic Belfast, the Ulster Museum and Carrick-a-Rede ropebridge were also high on the list.
And it has emerged that more visitors took in the joys of Bangor and Craigavon than came to the Lakeland county.
Kinnego Marina in Craigavon, Derry’s walls and Guildhall, Pickie Fun Park in Bangor, Mount Stewart, and W5 made up the remainder of the top 10 “headline” attractions, with hundreds of thousands of visitors to each.
The figures from NISRA, released last week, also show the enduring popularity of country parks and forests, with around 21.1 million visiting parks last year.
Despite Fermanagh excelling in this area, with a large number of parks and forests in a small area, the county again didn’t show up in the top ten list.
Lagan Valley Regional Park topped the list, with 1.3 million visitors, followed closely by Portadown People’s Park with almost 1.2 million visitors. The Peace Bridge in Derry was included, with almost one millions visitors. Dungannon, with almost 400,000 visitors, and Hazelbank, with almost 350,000, were at the bottom of the top ten.
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