This article is from page 13 of the 2006-01-24 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 13 JPG
FAILTE Ireland has pledged to spend €9 million this year to try to get more tourists to come to the Midwest region and to spend longer here once they arrive.
The cash injection comes as figures were released which show that overseas visitors spend less and stay for shorter times than visitors to any of the country’s other six tourism regions.
Failte Ireland research shows that overseas visitors spend €261 on average.
This is in comparison to the south-west, where the average visitor spends €413 and the west where the spend is €368.
And while visitors to the Midwest stay an average 3.7 nights, visitors to the west stick around for 5.3 nights and spend an average of six nights when they visit the south-west.
The money will be used for marketing, business supports, training and backing Shannon Development. Now management consultants,Mayday have been engaged by Failte Ireland to set up a network of workshops for people in the tourism industry.
The workshops are to start straight away and participants in the courses are promised they will improve their business performance, get greater visibility in the marketplace, increase their productivity, achieve higher standards and better customer value and greatly increase confidence in their management skills.