Northern Ireland tourism minister Arlene Foster hopes flights between Belfast and Canada may resume in the near future.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Politics show, she said more direct flights into Northern Ireland were needed.
Direct flights from Belfast to Toronto stopped in 2008 when Canadian airline Zoom went bankrupt.
Foster said her department had been working on building up an events strategy.
“We’ve really been concentrating on bringing large scale events to Northern Ireland,” she said.
“I’m delighted that the Irish Open is coming back to Northern Ireland next year, with Royal County Down in 2015 and the Lough Erne Golf Resort in 2017, so we have been spending a lot of time building up our events strategy over this last period of time, but of course we need direct flights in.
“It’s why I spend a lot of time when I go out on trade missions also talking to the tourism sector and indeed I will again be pushing the number one priority in that respect and that is Canada.
“We believe very strongly there should be a Canadian link again – there hasn’t been for some time and it’s one that I am very strongly of the view that we’ll be able to see over the line in the next period of time.”