Tourism body warns it may fold without funding lifeline

A CASH-STRICKEN independent tourism organisation in West Cork has warned it cannot continue to operate on a “hand-to-mouth basis”.

Set up in the 1980s to promote and increase the profile of West Cork, the crucial tourism group revealed its future “is under real and significant threat”. The chairman of West Cork Tourism appealed to the county council’s Western Committee for financial backing.

Bantry-based Vivian O’Callaghan junior said: “With absolutely no support coming from central government, the local tourism organisations in this country have been left to fend for themselves and the work is beginning to suffer.”