'Hotels need to upgrade offers to attract tourists'

HOTELS need to work harder to deliver a better product and attract tourists, the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) yesterday said.

Speaking on the eve of the federation's annual conference, which kicks off in Cork's Silver Springs hotel today, IHF president Richard Bourke said a "one-size-fits-all" approach was no longer good enough.

The industry needed more sophisticated marketing techniques and could no longer rely on stale formats such as two nights' bed-and-breakfast plus one dinner to capture the imagination of the public, said Mr Bourke.

There was also a pressing need to take action to reverse falling visitor numbers from Britain.

"The visitor trends are clear. With some €160 million spent by the industry alone each year in marketing, this must now be used in clever ways that specifically show the range of activities that are available for people when they reach their destination in Ireland," said Mr Bourke.

"We must make our marketing individual, specific and based on potential positive experiences to encourage people to choose our product offering over others in competing countries."

The IHF also said Ireland would suffer from new rules banning under-18s from hotel bars at night time, a move which it said was anti-family and made it harder to win business.

IHF chief executive John Power said the Government needed to join up its thinking to make sure that proposals from different Government departments gelled together well.

In a separate development yesterday, the Fexco-owned online booking engine Gulliver said the internet was forcing hoteliers to rethink their marketing strategies.

Gulliver managing director Stewart Stephens said more Irish and overseas tourists were using the web to check out holiday deals and that loyalty to specific brands was coming under pressure thanks to the transparency offered by the internet.

Mr Stephens also said the company's review of the hotel sector last year, which was published to coincide with the IHF conference, found more tourists were booking online ahead of using tourist offices and phone-based booking services.

Yesterday also saw tourist development agency Fáilte Ireland launch a range of support packages for tourist-related businesses.

The services include a new online facility to allow businesses to benchmark themselves against other operators, as well as guides to help manage costs.