Spot-Lit Project

In our series of blog posts, we have been looking at innovating tourism in the North West of Ireland. In this post we will tell you more about the Spot-Lit initiative.

Spot-lit is a three-year project (2018-2021) that aims to grow the literary tourism sector in the Northern Periphery and Arctic region by supporting the organisations and businesses in this culturally rich region to grow collaborate and better engage audiences together.

We went along to the information event which took place in November 2019 in Sligo and we found it very interesting and informative. The speakers were telling us about different literary events that take place and how they encourage tourists to visitor and boost the economy of the areas.

One of the events we heard about was the Wigtown Book Festival. Wigtown is a traditional market town located in Scotland, with a population of around 1000 people. In 1999 they came up with an idea to host a book festival, from small beginnings the event is now one of the best-known literary events taking place in the UK. The festival has won numerous awards and attracts well known writers and poets to come and speak at the event.

The Spot-Lit project addresses the need for shared development and marketing of existing assets and the development of new ones, which respond to emerging literary and cultural consumer needs. This will result in a better cultural tourism offering and deliver greater economic impact than projects developed in national isolation.

Several Irish Organisations benefitted from the Spot-Lit project including Cairde Arts Festival in Sligo and Turtulia Book Shop in Co. Mayo. You can read more about their projects and some of the other organisations who also received funding here.