Opinion Piece - Brendan Mulgrew - The Titanic Project

This article was published by the Irish News on 20 December 2012

Every Saturday morning as I convert the family car into a taxi and begin a marathon round of kids drops offs and pick ups, I tune into Radio 5 Live and I have the hilarious Danny Baker for company. This Saturday as post office party eh, dehydration, was also on the cards, Danny let us know what he thinks of the news. He reckoned that all news broadcasts should be banned until a week after Christmas when they could start up again, and be as bad as ever, but at least we would all have had a break from the anxiety. Danny’s view was that the FTSE Top 100 figures mean nothing to the ‘ordinary man on the street’ so why insert them into every bulletin? Reflecting on the news cycle in Northern Ireland over the last week I could see what he meant.

This past week the Audit Office report into the Tourist Board signature projects was released, on the day that tickets went online for the Titanic Belfast building, which will open its doors next April. Talk about bad timing. The audit office questioned the viability of the yet to open building and whether it will meet its ambitious sales targets. In a report which missed the whole point of the exercise by a mile, the boffins of the Audit Office managed to throw a cloud over some of our best hopes for economic regeneration. Naturally elements of the media lapped it up and some commentators, including in this newspaper, took great delight in picking over the bones of a project which has yet to be built, never mind opened. Since the report was published tickets to Titanic Belfast have gone on sale and at the time of writing well in excess of 60,000 have been sold, with more than 300 tourist parties having reserved their place for 2012.

In this column some 5 years ago I questioned whether there was the will within central and local Government to get a suitable Titanic tourist project open prior to the centenary celebrations. At the time of publication there was a lot of talking going on, with not a shovel in sight. It was an opinion piece which earned me a not so gentle rebuke from City Hall officials and I am delighted and relieved to be able to say that my misgivings were misplaced. Through the PR role of the company for whom I work for in my day job I have had a chance to get a tour of the new Titanic Belfast building and it is quite simply stunning. The enthusiasm of those behind the project is infectious and there is no doubt that this venture can succeed. A bit of goodwill will help along the way.

Do you recall the Kevin Costner movie “Field of Dreams”? It’s one of my favourites and over the Christmas holiday season I am likely to re watch it. It features an Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella who hears a voice urging him to construct a baseball field with the words, “If you build it, they will come”. Titanic Belfast may or may not get the 290,000 visitors it has targeted each year but one thing is for sure, if we hadn’t built it, they wouldn’t come. At least we now have a shot at capturing a decent share of the tourist market next year and beyond.

For those begrudgers who decry the public funding, I really have no time. A couple of ago months the same people were complaining that the MTV awards cost the Council £1m. So what? Had it been double that it was still worth the money. What Northern Ireland needs right now from those in public office and from the entrepreneurs in society, is courage and imagination, not the spectre of the risk averse Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee lurking on their shoulder and discouraging investment. Of course there is a balance between investing money and wasting it, but with the projects under scrutiny last week – which also included the Giants Causeway centre – we are talking about infrastructure projects which can help us make a mark in the international tourism sector.

On the day that I had the pleasure of seeing inside Titanic Belfast I also had a tour of the new Metropolitan Arts Centre which will also open next April. There is another piece of emerging infrastructure which is breath-taking. It is actually difficult to remember that you are not on holiday somewhere overseas when you realise what the MAC is going to be like, and the works which will be on display in St Anne’s Square.

The future of Belfast and of Northern Ireland can be great; there is no question about that. But let’s not have the cynics take over, this is a time to be confident and ambitious in our targets for our new society. In a few years to come, 2012 can be one we look back on as the year we turned the corner.

I only hope that with all these new attractions on our doorstep, I still have time for good old Danny on a Saturday morning.

Brendan Mulgrew is Managing Director of Stakeholder Communications.