While not aimed directly at coach tour operators, CEO Fáilte Ireland Paul Kelly’s address gave some idea of the thinking in Fáilte Ireland and some of the supports available.
“Recently, I attended the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport & Media for a discussion on the cost of hotel accommodation along with the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation (ITIC), the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) and Department officials. You can read my full opening statement here.
The subject has been covered widely in the media in recent weeks. Ireland is not a low-cost destination, but it is seen as a good value destination because consumers have found the quality received was worth the price they paid. However, early indications suggest these scores are likely to worsen over the summer.
We know that the cost of doing business has risen significantly and rising costs were highlighted as the top concern for the industry in our latest Tourism Barometer. While managing this, I encourage you to be mindful of protecting both your own business’ reputation and Ireland’s reputation as a good value destination as this will be hugely important for repeat and future business.
There are several supports and tools to help you to reduce costs on our Business Support Hub and we are continuing to focus on priority areas such as energy management as part of our schedule of Tourism Capability Supports.
We are also very conscious of the issue around supply and demand. One of our key priorities is to drive regional tourism development across the country and we are currently developing and implementing four Regional Tourism Strategies and 20 localised Destination Development Plans which will be critical to spreading the benefits of tourism more widely.
As part of this wider strategy, a number of new and enhanced attractions are opening across the country ahead of the summer season, including a new state-of-the-art visitor experience at the Céide Fields in Mayo and the Patrick Kavanagh Visitor Experience in Monaghan. These new visitor experiences will attract additional visitors to these areas and generate jobs and revenue for the local economies.
Our Keep Discovering domestic marketing campaign will also continue to encourage people to explore Ireland by highlighting some of the lesser-known tourism destinations.
Our schedule of Tourism Capability Supports for 2022 includes webinars and workshops across a number of priority areas including commercial planning and finance, sales and marketing, revenue generation, digital skills, climate action and HR and people management. If you or a member of your team are interested in attending one of our upcoming programmes, you can access the schedule and sign up here.
As part of our upcoming suite of climate action supports, coming up on the 30th June is the ‘Energy Management Made Easy for Tourism Businesses’ webinar which will provide practical tips and tools on saving energy and an overview of the funding supports available from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) and the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI).
Upcoming support programmes available to book now:
30th June: Energy Management Made Easy for Tourism Businesses
7th September: Digital: Google Analytics & Conversion Rate Optimisation
19th September: Introduction to CRM & Database Management
21st September: Digital: Developing your Digital Marketing Plan for optimal ROI
22nd September: Pricing your Offers, Contracting and Negotiating your B2B Sales *Please note – on demand business supports and self-directed learning continue to be available on our Business Support Hub during July and August.
