Autonomy for Dublin in tourism shake-up

Dublin will retain full powers to promote itself as a holiday destination under a major revamp of regional tourism, it emerged today.

Five other tourist authorities around the country will hand over the operation of their tourist offices and their marketing functions to Fáilte Ireland, following a review of regional tourism.

Dublin Tourism said it had won the right to retain its autonomy after raising its concerns with Tourism, Sports and Arts Minister John O’Donoghue.

“My whole case is based on the fact that Dublin is in competition with other European cities. The Dublin market is different,” said chief executive Frank Magee.

He said that while bed nights in Dublin over a four-year period grew by 2.7 million, they fell by two million in the rest of Ireland.

“So Dublin is a totally different proposition and it needed to be allowed the freedom to achieve its own approach and that’s what’s happened. We’re number three in Europe, we’re outperforming the rest of the country, and if you’ve a winning formula, why change it?”

The recommendation of regional tourism structures review, carried out by consultants last April, was reversed by an independent expert committee set up under former Forfas chief executive John Travers.

However, the review will lead to most of the country’s 68 tourist offices coming under the control of Fáilte Ireland.

The review said they had become synonymous with the delivery of information and had not given a lot of consideration to changing visitor requirements.

It said the locations of the offices appeared to be determined primarily by local political considerations rather than by visitor patterns and added that the quality of the service varied widely.

Ireland West Tourism said the re-organisation would allow it and the other regional tourist authorities to concentrate on developing tourism.

“We see it as a positive change and it’s about more resources for the region, not less,” said senior tourism officer Brian Quinn.

Last year, the number of visits to Ireland by overseas tourists increased by 3.3% to 6.4 million. However, this was weaker than the 10% growth rate worldwide and there were falling numbers of visitors to the regions.