Tourism chiefs to market three ‘super regions’
The investment is part of a plan to market three ‘super regions’ to tourists throughout Ireland.
Tourism chiefs are worried visitors are cutting back on their length of stay and choosing urban centres, particularly Dublin, over trips to the countryside.
Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) president Richard Bourke said: “Ireland needs to find that special way of marketing itself in order to bring overseas visitors back into our countryside.”
Announcing the extra funding, Tourism Minister John O’Donoghue said achieving a better balance of tourism business between rural and urban Ireland was “a key tenet” of Government strategy.
“There was a very good increase in tourists in larger urban centres, for example Dublin, which was up by over 11%,” Mr O’Donoghue said.
“But some of the regions stayed stagnant or had no specific increases.
“The problem is we have reached the stage where there is a sea-change in tourism, we have more visitors than ever before.
“We have what I would describe as a cash-rich and time-poor customer, we have got to tailor our product accordingly.”
The €5m investment is on top of the record €40m marketing spend already earmarked for 2006.
Under a new marketing campaign, Tourism Ireland aims to invest €50m over the next three years.
A record 6.7 million people visited this country last year, generating €5.2 billion in revenue.
But bed nights by overseas visitors outside Dublin have fallen by 9.2 million since 1999, according to the IHF, which noted the western seaboard had lost 3 million bed nights in the last five years.
And demand for activity-based holidays such as angling, walking, golf, cycling and equestrian was also in decline.
Mr Bourke said the funding was vital to revive overseas tourism in regional areas to reverse this decline.
He said the federation believed the establishment of three new super regions for the purpose of overseas promotion was a strategic step in reinvigorating the regions.
The number of visitors should not be the key measurement of the success of our tourism marketing, he added.
Rather it should be the number of nights spent by overseas leisure tourists in the country.
Mr O’Donoghue said the tourism figures last year made tourism the single most successful indigenous industry since the foundation of the State.
The €5m will be invested by Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland in three new projects: a local area marketing fund, an innovation fund and a new overseas marketing drive.
A key initiative, Mr O’Donoghue said, would be a new €3m marketing programme based on the concept of super regions - new strategic marketing alliances between adjoining tourism regions for the purposes of overseas promotion.
Each super region will get €1m.
A new €1m local area marketing fund will be used to support the tourism at a local level.
The fund encourages the industry to work together to develop and offer promotional packages to boost rural tourism revenue from home and overseas market.
Mr O’Donoghue said this is a pilot initiative where the immediate priority is to promote and support innovation in tourism and stimulate investment across all regions but with an emphasis on areas outside the main urban centres.
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