The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Paschal Donohoe T.D., was joined in Kilkenny Castle by An Taoiseach,
Enda Kenny T.D., for the launch of the Government’s new tourism policy, entitled ‘People, Place and Policy – Growing Tourism to 2025’.
The new Policy Statement sets out a range of objectives and aims to grow tourism over the next decade so that, by 2025, revenue from 10 million overseas visits will increase to €5 billion, enabling employment in the sector to rise to 250,000
The Irish Hotels Federation welcomed the policy. President Stephen McNally acknowledged the important support provided by the Government in ensuring tourism remains at the heart of Ireland’s economic policy and in recognising the valuable role played by tourism in growing the Irish economy and generating increased employment.
Northern Ireland is hoping that Rory McIlroy will help drive spending on golf in Northern Ireland up by more than €23m over the next five years.
Golf tourism currently brings about €45m into the Northern Irish economy annually.
Northern Irish Tourism Minister Arlene Foster is aiming to push that figure up to just over €68m by the end of 2020, with part of the plan being to highlight the roots of players such as Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell.
Mrs Foster said: "The vision of the strategy is to grow the value of golf tourism to £50m per annum by 2020, and in doing so to remind golfers worldwide that Northern Ireland is where golf champions are born and play.
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A delegation of 35 Irish tourism businesses travelled to Paris to take part in a brand new, B2B tourism event for 2015, Irlande à Paris.
The group is pictured with Caroline Phelan, Tourism Ireland (back, fifth right), and Game of Thrones characters (right), outside the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris, where the new B2B tourism event, Irlande à Paris, took place.
Organised by Tourism Ireland, Irlande à Paris took place in the Irish Cultural Centre and involved two simultaneous workshops and networking events – one targeting group tour operators and travel agents, the other business tourism and MICE (meetings, incentive, conferences and events) buyers. It provided the Irish delegation with the opportunity to meet and do business with more than 250 carefully selected French travel professionals – including leading business tourism buyers, group tour operators and travel agents.
Monica MacLaverty, Tourism Ireland’s head of southern Europe, said: “2014 was a record year for French visitors to Ireland and Tourism Ireland in France is undertaking an extensive programme of promotional activity throughout 2015 – to keep the momentum going and build on that growth. We were delighted that so many influential French travel professionals took the time to come and meet our industry partners at our new event, Irlande à Paris – demonstrating their keen interest in programming the island of Ireland in 2015 and beyond.”
