Innovation Case Studies

Titanic Belfast

Titanic Belfast opened in 2012 with the aim of establishing Belfast as the home of RMS Titanic, celebrating the city’s maritime and industrial heritage, and showing that the spirit that built Titanic remains today.

Since then, the visitor attraction has gone from strength to strength on a local, national and international level. A £4.5m large-scale refreshment of the Titanic Experience, completed in partnership with Maritime Belfast Trust in 2023, was designed to deliver a world-class spectacle, enabling the attraction to continue to drive visitors to Belfast and Northern Ireland while enhancing the interpretive and interactive experience in an innovative way for future generations.

The project helps the Titanic story to come to life in a new immersive way, incorporating innovative new technology whilst also including authentic storytelling, animation, music and more. An illuminated 7.6m long scale model of RMS Titanic is suspended from the ceiling and fully rotates, known as ‘The Ship of Dreams’.

Continuous improvement at Titanic Belfast drives digital innovation, focusing on seamless experiences for visitors through mobile ticketing, digital maps and multi-media guides provided in different languages. Social sustainability is an important consideration throughout, partnering with local businesses where possible and creating jobs across these companies.

Crumlin Road Gaol

Crumlin Road Gaol is Northern Ireland’s only remaining Victorian era prison. Having closed in 1996 it was re-opened as a visitor attraction in 2012, designed to allow visitors to gain a unique and memorable  insight into 150 years of history surrounding the daily lives and routines of both prisoners and staff.

Innovation is central to the experience at the Gaol, continuing with the 2023 completion of a digital project to enhance the self-guided visitor experience which includes holograms to bring the history to life and an AR Zone for visitors to fully immerse themselves into the Gaol when it was a working prison.

Audio Guides are also available to help customers navigate their way around the 13-acre site. To enhance the inclusiveness of their self-guided offer, content is offered in 6 languages and there is also a facility to allow British Sign Language allowing material to be interpreted via sign videos and making the tour more accessible.

Brook Hall Estate

For over thirty years, the historic estate of Brook Hall located on the banks of the River Foyle has actively committed to researching and promoting renewable energy, environmental, and landscape management strategies to achieve genuine sustainability and inspire behavioural change; becoming the first heritage landscape in Northern Ireland to be measurably beyond carbon neutral.

Keen to share the impact of their sustainability practices, David Gilliland, the sixth generation living at Brook Hall, developed a series of innovative tourism experiences which take visitors on a journey through the heritage, nature, and sustainability of the demesne. Experiences include a guided tour of the willow farm and biomass processing facilities followed by a series of experimental activities across the wider estate and gardens, exploring the soil health and biodiversity within the landscape along the way.