Congratulations to Ballyness Caravan Park and Breckenhill
By ELEANOR MCGILLIE 2 June, 2017
TWO Live It Experience It members based on Northern Ireland’s North Coast have picked up accolades recently so we want to give a big shout out to Ballyness Caravan Park and Breckenhill for their fantastic achievements.
Olive Dunlop from Ballyness Caravan Park has recently achieved the required standard in the WorldHost programme as a Food Ambassador while Breckenhill won Best Tourism Business in the Ballyclare Business Awards – an award sponsored by the Ballyclare Chamber of Trade and Commerce.
Olive, from Ballyness Caravan Park, did a half day course in the Causeway Hotel with Wendy Gallagher, World Host tutor. She learned a lot about the local food producers and their passion and journeys to market.
Sampling local produce was an essential part of the day as was hearing directly from our fantastic range of producers here in Northern Ireland. Another element was learning how to go about promoting what our local food producers have to offer to Ballyness Caravan Park guests, through either restaurants, local markets and also through Ballyness Caravan Park itself.
Olive told Live It Experience It: “The course made me thinking about how I could promote the local and growing food industry on the North Coast to our guests. We already encourage guests to use the local shops and display menus from the local restaurants. We have been promoting the local food tours and have hosted them from our park. We were in the process of finishing off a new extension to the caravan holiday home park and I thought it would be nice to give all our new owners a hamper of local food.
“The hamper contained Suki tea, coffee from Gracehill, North Coast Smokehouse salt, whiskey from Old Bushmills Distillery, Glens of Antrim sweet potato crisps, Broighter Gold rapeseed oil and specially made chocolate with our logo and also two books from Food NI about the local producers and restaurants. I also included an information sheet with all the details of the producers.
“All our guests have come back to us commenting on the boxes, they have loved them and are now saying they are actively looking for local food. It is great to hear because we are lucky to have so many local producers who are making awarding winning food. Promoting the local produce is great for our business as our guests love coming up to their new holiday home and exploring the markets and restaurants on the North Coast.”
Henrietta Reade from Breckenhill too was delighted to have won Best Tourism Business. Breckenhill is an outdoor activity centre which is perfect for corporate team building days, groups of friends who need to go and blow off steam and have a great day out together.
Speaking about winning the accolade, Henrietta, said: “I would like to thank everyone who voted for us. We have a very loyal group of customers, friends and fellow business owners who are so supportive. To be able to tell our visitors that we have won Best Tourism Business is great. Thank so much to everyone who took the time to vote and we look forward to welcoming people to the stunning hills of Ballyclare to come and enjoy some fun loving outdoor adventure.”
Congratulations to both of our members on these well deserved achievements.
Live It Experience It’ is a group of journalists and travel writers who tell the story of our members. We work collaboratively with our members, which are tourism businesses, to promote Northern Ireland through water, air and land based activities, food and drink and great places to stay. Together we let our visitors know of all of the amazing things Northern Ireland has to offer. To become a member business in of ‘Live It Experience It’ call our office on 028 3756 8436 or please submit your information through our online form. T&Cs apply – Sign Up Here Let us tell your story! Live It Experience It is the NW200 tourism partner for 2018.
