As the summer season gets under way, Failte Ireland offers some ideas for coach operators to interest their customers continue to drive regional tourism development by creating compelling new reasons for people to visit different destinations across Ireland. 

This month, two exciting new attractions were officially opened – ‘Beyond the Trees Avondale’, a spectacular new visitor experience in Wicklow, and a new visitor experience at the iconic Blasket Centre (Ionad an Bhlascaoid) in Kerry. You can read more about these below and on www.failteireland.ie. These are in addition to a number of other new and enhanced attractions that have opened across the country in recent months, including a new visitor experience at the Céide Fields in Mayo and the Patrick Kavanagh Visitor Experience in Monaghan.  

Hosting sporting events is also important in driving tourism growth to all regions of Ireland and gives us the opportunity to showcase our country to an international audience. Earlier this month, the 2022 Horizon Irish Open returned to the Mount Juliet Estate in Kilkenny and we used our sponsorship of the event to highlight the importance of golf tourism to rural and local economies. Along with the return of in-person spectators this year, the event was broadcast to over 300 million homes worldwide giving viewers a taste of Ireland’s world-class golf product which will inspire future international leisure and golf trips. 

Congratulations also to the team at Adare Manor and all involved in the JP McManus Pro-Am on a fantastic event which will also help to raise the profile of Ireland’s golf product internationally and proved to be a useful test-run for the Ryder Cup 2027 which will take place at the venue. Following the last economic downturn, golf tourism was one of the first areas of tourism to rebound in Ireland. We believe golf tourism will play an important part in supporting the recovery of the sector so it is fantastic to see these events take place once again.

This August, Dublin will also host the Northwestern Wildcats v Nebraska Cornhuskers American Football game which is expected to generate €63m for our economy and will showcase Ireland’s ability to host large-scale sporting tournaments to three million US TV viewers.  

Finally, I would like to remind you that, as we move through the season, on demand business supports and self-directed learning on areas from digital marketing to HR, recruitment and retention are available on our Business Support Hub.