A destination within a destination: opening Portview to new audiences
How Portview began testing the idea of opening the Mill to visitors and wider public activity.
Tourism as a regeneration tool
When tourism consultants looked at Portview in 2020, the aim was not to turn Strand Spinning Mill into a conventional visitor attraction. The strategy treated visitor activity as a tool: increasing footfall, opening the site to new audiences and helping connect the Mill with the wider heritage and cultural offer of East Belfast. The work was informed by conversations with organisations including EastSide Tourism, Visit Belfast, National Museums and Belfast City Council’s cultural team, alongside community and stakeholder input.
Four ways to think about a visitor destination
The tourism strategy organised its recommendations around four ideas: Portview as a Destination within a Destination; a Place of Attraction; a Place of Activity; and a Place of Community. That framing was deliberately broader than tourism marketing. It asked what would give people a reason to come to the Mill, what they could do when they arrived, how activity could support the businesses already on site and how Portview could connect with nearby assets such as the Connswater Greenway and East Belfast’s industrial heritage trail.
Testing the idea in real life
The years that followed began to test that proposition. Banana Block created a more public-facing part of Portview. Markets, food businesses, exhibitions, festivals, heritage activity and recurring programmes brought people onto a site that had previously been experienced mainly as a workplace. That does not mean the tourism strategy is complete. It shows the value of meanwhile uses: practical projects can build audiences, test demand and change how people perceive a historic place while the larger capital regeneration challenge continues. The long-term opportunity is for Strand Spinning Mill to be both a place to work and a place people actively choose to visit — contributing to Portview and to the wider Newtownards Road.
