British food writer Xanthe Clay will chair a conference in Belfast next February entitled Focus on Food. The development of food tourism in the city is the theme, and it is being organised by Belfast City Council and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. The conference will address culinary destination marketing, industry collaboration, partnership working and digi-marketing tools.

St George’s Market in the city is the venue, and it is aimed at chefs, restaurateurs, food producers, tourism bodies and hospitality professionals. Clay said the conference “aims to get producers and restaurateurs working together. Great strides have been made already in this area and it is great to see everyone looking to move forward”.

Launching the conference, the Deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast Cllr Máire Hendron said, “Food events are highly lucrative for Belfast, with the recent Belfast Restaurant Week generating an additional spend of £500,000. The aim of this conference is to see what more we can do to maximise the economic benefit of food tourism, not only for Belfast but the region as a whole, by sharing best practice and seeing what else we can do to improve and promote our food tourism offer.”

For further details, see belfastcity.gov.uk/food.