GAA bid to attract 1,000 tourists to games

CROKE PARK chiefs are set to launch a campaign to attract tourists to inter-county championship games which could inject up to €600,000 annually into the association’s coffers.

The pilot scheme is seeking to attract 1,000 foreign visitors to football and hurling clashes, starting with the All-Ireland SFC campaign.

Stadium director Peter McKenna believes the time has come for Ireland’s national games to be marketedproperly and make Croke Park a tourist attraction.

“If you go to New York, they’reselling a baseball or ice hockey game depending on the time of year, if you go to Thailand it’s kickboxing, if you go to Spain maybe it is bullfighting,” he said. “We felt it was exactly the same opportunity here. Our marketing person, Julie Manahan, has spent a lot of time on this. We’ve got a dedicated programme now to attract tourists coming into the city to go to a match.

“We’re trying to pull together a tourist package so that when people come here. They can enjoy the day and get a tour of the museum, and get an introduction to the game through a tour guide.”

McKenna outlined the project will be reviewed after the first year and that there will then be a better understanding in relation to purchase patterns.

“For the first year I’d see this as cost neutral with whatever advertising we’d put in. It is reasonably expensive to put it out. You’ve a scatter gun approach first of all, look to break even and then cut back to make it successful and build on it. It’s a very strong audience to look at. This year is more of a pilot as well to find out what the purchase patterns are. It is going to be very much internet driven when people are making their bookings. We’ll find out what is the best avenue for us to market the product through.

“It is about getting it across to people that this is quintessentially the Irish experience. So many people are sports fanatics and would you get a better afternoon’s entertainment than we would have seen with Dublin and Kilkenny last Sunday?”

Meanwhile, McKenna revealed the cost of maintaining Croke Park on an annual basis is now around €3m and that burst pipes during freezingweather conditions caused serious problems.

“We had an awful series of costs that came because of the hard winter. Many of the exposed pipes running through the building burst. That type of work ran into the hundreds ofthousands. Your usual bill for the course of the year wouldn’t be too shy of €3m. We extensively refurbished the whole premium level at the end of last year as well. That was an important statement to those people who have been with us for ten years, that they’re coming back to a completely refurbished environment.”