We live full-time in a van right on the border of Donegal and Northern Ireland. It’s a brilliant part of the world, but it also gives me a front-row seat to one of the most avoidable tourism failures on this island. Spend a week travelling in a motorhome here and you’ll quickly notice the same thing I have: Northern Ireland has no idea how valuable motorhome tourism is. Worse still, it is not tracking it, planning for it, or doing much to encourage it.
Meanwhile, the Republic of Ireland is out there building routes, publishing strategies, running the Wild Atlantic Way like a well-drilled machine, and attracting campervans from all over Europe. Neither side is perfect. One has the scenery, the routes, and the buzz. The other has better bin coverage and councils that actually exist. But between them, nobody is quite nailing it. Which is daft, because the demand is already there and the spending power is huge!
Let’s walk through the evidence.
The UK Motorhome Market is Massive
Depending on how you slice the DVLA spreadsheets, the UK has between 225,000 and 250,000 motor caravans on the road. These are not guesses. The data is in the official vehicle licensing tables, but the body type “motor caravan” is buried in the spreadsheets rather than presented as a tidy headline.
Ireland has only around 20,000 registered campervans. And yet it is the place that has built the Wild Atlantic Way, embraced touring culture, and actually measures the impact of campervan tourism.
Northern Ireland sits there with a quarter of a million potential visitors just across the Irish Sea, and behaves like this whole market barely exists.
The Question Nobody Can Answer
If you want a laugh, try finding an official answer to this:
How many UK motorhomes cross the Irish Sea each year to visit Northern Ireland or the Republic?
- DVA does not track it.
- Tourism NI does not track it.
- Tourism Ireland does not track it.
- NISRA does not track it.
Ferry operators know exactly how many they carry, but treat it as commercial data.
Even the national tourism strategies do not ask the question.
So, for all the talk of supporting rural tourism, seasonality reduction, coastal regeneration, and cross-border cooperation, nobody is counting one of the easiest tourist groups to measure. There is not even a tick box for “arrived in a motorhome” in most visitor surveys.
For a region that loves a spreadsheet, it is a baffling oversight.
What We Can Estimate From Real Data
Even without an official count, the pieces line up clearly.
Republic of Ireland numbers
The Wild Atlantic Way records around 430,000 campervan overnight stays per year, generating roughly €85 million in local economic impact. That’s an average of €198 per van-night.
Northern Ireland numbers
The UK Caravan and Camping Alliance report puts NI’s total holiday park and campsite spend at £344 million a year. Touring pitches alone account for £56.5 million of that.
Visitors staying on touring pitches spend an average of £136 per day per party, which is more than double the NI visitor average of £58. Around 40 percent of that spend goes straight into local businesses such as cafes, restaurants, fuel stations, hardware shops and attractions.
What that tells us
A realistic island-wide estimate is that 20,000 to 35,000 UK motorhomes make the trip across the Irish Sea each year. Most of those go to the Republic. Northern Ireland probably sees 2,000 to 5,000 of them. Not because NI is unattractive, but because NI offers very little in terms of facilities, certainty or welcome.
Those are conservative numbers, by the way. They are absolutely achievable and entirely realistic.
ROI vs NI: A Tale of Two Tourism Strategies
Republic of Ireland
National caravan and camping strategy in place.
Wild Atlantic Way actively measures campervan activity.
Tourism bodies consider motorhome travel a growth segment.
Scenic routes, signage and branding all make touring feel welcomed.
Downsides: waste disposal is poor. Privatised waste means very few legal general waste points. Many van owners cross into NI just to empty their bins.
Northern Ireland
Better general waste infrastructure in towns.
A handful of decent aires that prove the concept works.
But an overall approach that seems to treat motorhomes as a nuisance.
Height barriers everywhere.
A complete absence of a unified motorhome strategy.
Zero data collection.
Lack of investment in even basic black waste infrastructure.
No official touring route (no, I don’t class the Causeway Coastal Route as anything other than a pale attempt at a continuation of the Wild Atlantic Way), no coordinated overnight parking approach, no marketing, no signage, and no clear message for visitors.
NI has all the raw ingredients to be a top-tier touring destination. It just doesn’t act like it wants the business.
The Missed Economic Opportunity
Let’s put it into blunt numbers.
A visiting motorhome couple is worth around £100 to £140 per day.
Average stay: 4 to 5 nights.
Total trip value: £500 to £650 per van.
With around 40 percent spent off-site, each motorhome visit is worth £200 to £300 in local spend in the surrounding area.
Small town example:
Two extra vans per night
200 viable nights of the year
That is £96,000 of visitor spend without building a single hotel room or holding a single event!
Multiply that across ten towns. Then multiply by a decade. This is real money that councils talk about wanting but never plan for.
Motorhomers travel off-season, stay longer, move slowly, and spend locally. They are the definition of low-impact, high-value visitors.
My Experience on the NI–Donegal Border
I spend a lot of time parked up on both sides of this border. I love the place. But the differences stand out.
In Donegal, the vibe is fantastic. Scenic spots, coastal routes, aires popping up, and places that actively welcome vans. But try finding a proper black waste disposal point. You’ll end up on Google Maps praying for a unicorn symbol.
In Northern Ireland, you’ll find more bins, clearer signage, and councils that maintain things properly, but very few places to dump waste, very few designated motorhome spots, and a lot of height barriers that make no sense.
Between the two systems, the touring experience is half brilliant and half frustrating. And it doesn’t need to be.
A Clear, Simple Strategy NI Could Put In Place
Here is what NI councils and tourism bodies could do without spending millions.
1. Start measuring motorhome tourism
Add a category to visitor surveys, work with ferry operators, and publish annual stats.
2. Build a shared all-Ireland map of waste points, water taps, and overnight spots
Because van owners move freely across the border and the tourist experience is continuous.
3. Install 10 to 15 proper dump points across NI
Cheap, easy, and high impact. Place them near main routes, seaside towns, and park-and-ride sites.
4. Create low-cost aires in existing council car parks
A marked bay, a sign, a water tap, and a clear overnight policy are enough to start.
5. Stop blocking access with barriers that solve nothing
If a town doesn’t want antisocial behaviour, enforce it. Don’t punish paying visitors with height restrictions.
6. Promote NI as a motorhome-friendly destination
Online listing, signage on key routes, and info boards at car parks.
7. Track the money
A simple annual small business survey to measure van-related spend would back up the argument with hard numbers.
This is not difficult. It is not expensive. It just needs someone to treat motorhome tourism as a real segment rather than an afterthought.
Conclusion: A Borderlander’s Plea
Northern Ireland does not have a motorhome problem. It has a visibility problem and a planning problem. The visitors are already coming. The money is already there. The Republic of Ireland sees the value and is moving in the right direction. NI is still putting up height barriers.
This is a tourism sector worth tens of millions. It stretches the season, supports rural towns, and requires almost no new infrastructure. All it needs is leadership, a few waste points, and the basic courtesy of being counted.
Right now, Ireland gets the customers. Northern Ireland gets the complaints. It doesn’t have to stay that way.
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