Nature Trails and Mixed Routes - Tourism and Trails: Cultural, Ecological and Management Issues - page 88

Case Study: Causeway Coastal Route (CCR), Northern
Ireland ( Continued )
approved and a new visitor center built. The new center opened in the
summer of 2012 at a cost of £18.5 million (Figure 3.10). Visitors can
choose to park at the center itself or have the option of a park-and-ride
scheme from the nearby village of Bushmills, which is also home to the
world's oldest working whiskey distillery. Alternatively, visitors can take
a nostalgic journey on a narrow-gauge heritage railway that runs from
Bushmills to the causeway; the station is only a few hundred meters
away from the new visitor center. Two 40-seater carriages are equipped
with audio commentary facilities that offer visitors a history of the elec-
tric tramway and of places of interest along the short journey.
The Giant's Causeway has in the past been viewed as a stand-alone
attraction; some organized tours chose to combine it with a visit to the
nearby Old Bushmills Distillery (off the route itself), thereafter leaving
the coastal region and returning to Belfast or even traveling further
afield to places such as Dublin, using major inland arterial routes. Since
its opening, the visitor center, combined with actually viewing the
causeway, has the potential to be the base from which visitors choose to
explore the CCR, thereby bringing the concept of intervening opportu-
nity into play. In its first year of re-opening (2012) the visitor center
received 782,000 visitors, surpassed only by Titanic Belfast, which
received over 805,000 visiting during its first year of operation (Northern
Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, 2013).
Figure 3.10 The Causeway Coast visitor center