This article is from page 10 of the 2006-11-28 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 10 JPG
THE Government has been urged to set up a special tourism marketing budget for the local authorities of counties in the west of Ireland.
The call came from north Clare County Councillor Martin Conway (FG) for a three-day all-island Tourism Conference which took place in Ireland over the weekend.
“This initiative is necessary in order to create a level playing field between urban and rural tourism in Ireland,” said Cllr Conway in Ennistymon over the weekend. “Recent trends have seen a ballooning of tourist numbers traveling to Ireland on short city breaks, particularly Dublin, while growth has not been as dramatic in rural parts of the country.”
Cllr Conway believes that this trend could be targeted at specific markets and could have a significant impact on tourism in Clare and in the western area generally.
“With low-cost airlines such as Ryanair developing new routes, particularly into Shannon, the importance of marketing in regions where Ireland would not have experienced large tourism traffic is becoming increasingly important.
“Markets such as Italy, Spain, Germany and Eastern Europe have significant further growth potential.”
Conway went on to say that this new scheme could be driven by a tourism development officer and that it would support the new culture of balanced regional development with Ireland and the EU in general.
The weekend’s event was the 18th conference hosted by the Clare Tourist Council, in conjunction with Clare County Council. The annual conference is organised for tourism industry officials, along with members of local authorities, county enterprise boards, partnerships and all public and private bodies involved in the promotion of tourism.
This year’s conference was entitled ‘Promoting Co-operative Tourism Marketing’ and was attended by hundreds of delegates from each of the 32 counties.
Junior Minister, Síle De Valera, officially opened the conference in what will be one of her final official engagements before she steps down as Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science on December 8.
Among those addressing the conference were Fáilte Ireland’s Director of Marketing, Paul Keeley; Katherine Webster, Director of the Cliffs of Moher New Visitor Experience; and Eamonn O Neachtain, Bainisteoir Réigiúnach, from an Daingean, who briefed delegates on ‘Cultural Tourism in the Gaeltacht’.
The Clare Tourist Council hosted its first national tourism conference in 1989 and subsequent conferences have addressed a wide range of tourism issues such as tourism and the environment and the role played by local authorities in tourism.