Bowler appointed chair of Fáilte Ireland

Tourism Minister John O'Donoghue has appointed Gillian Bowler chairperson of the Government's new tourism authority.

Fáilte Ireland, which will be formally launched on Wednesday May 28, was established to replace CERT and Bórd Fáilte, whose staff will all take up posts with the new body.

The authority will work closely with Tourism Ireland, the cross-border body which promotes tourism in the Republic and the North.

Welcoming the appointment of2 Gillian Bowler as chairman and Shaun Quinn as chief executive to Failte Ireland, Irish Hotels Federation president Jim Murphy said it now has the urgent task of merging the activities of CERT with the retained functions of Bord Fáilte.

"We believe this Authority will provide an opportunity to invigorate domestic tourism marketing activities whilst improving the efficiency and impact of the Regional Tourism Authorities," he said.

The IHF stated that the vision of bringing together Bord Fáilte's domestic marketing functions and CERT's functions to provide trained employees for the sector made absolute sense - both from an economic and synergy perspective.

"Fáilte Ireland has a clear brief for training and recruitment, product development, marketing and setting standards and will augment the overseas tourism marketing activities being carried out by Tourism Ireland Limited,” Mr Murphy said.

"As the biggest employer within the tourism sector with 60,000 employees, the IHF looks forward to a healthy, productive interaction with the new agency which will result in increasing Irish tourism's role as a strong driver of Ireland's economic growth," he concluded.