News

Tourism Must Control On-Line

As global online travel grows, experts say Ireland’s tourism businesses must take more independent and strategic control of their online sales channels

Online sales

The online presence of new and developing overseas markets such as China and India is expected to rival the web-dominance of the US and Europe within the online travel industry in the coming years – in a global travel sales market expected to be worth $103trillion this year.

This is one of the many insights due to be shared with almost 100 Irish tourism businesses at a International Online Symposium taking place in the Aviva Stadium to-day (Thursday), The symposium was designed by Fáilte Ireland to encourage Irish businesses to take advantage of global travel trends as gross bookings for the global travel industry are expected to climb year on year.

Food Breakfast

Fáilte Ireland’s Dublin team held a Breakfast Briefing with Dublin tourism businesses on how use food to boost their brand, popularity, and sales.

Entitled ‘Let's Talk Food’ the event was specifically tailored for businesses responsible for marketing their food offering.

Dublin’s food scene is currently having a ‘movement’ and every country in the world with a tourism offering is trying to use their food as a way to make them stand out.

The briefing covered:

Radisson Staff at Capuchin Centre

Guests to the Capuchin Centre were treated to a pleasant surprise when 42 staff members from three Dublin based Radisson Blu Hotels were cooking and helping to serve

monks

1,000 meals to the capital’s people in need.

The Capuchin Day Centre provides a safe, warm and comfortable environment for people to retreat to, and with the growing increase of people in need, their services are required more than ever. Each morning of the week the Capuchin Day Centre provides breakfast for approximately 300 people and a full lunch in the afternoon for 600 from its premises at the back of the Capuchin Friary on Church Street in Dublin’s inner city. The service is provided completely free of charge for people who are homeless or in need. In addition, the centre also distributes 1700 food parcels every Wednesday to those on the poverty threshold who are finding it difficult to feed their families. Other simple means such showers, clothing and a variety of medical, dental and social services are also provided for people who are finding life difficult.

Ashford Tops Huffington List

Ashford Castle in Cong, Co Mayo, has taken the top spot on the “best hotels in the world for fall 2015” list on the Huffington Post website – which has about 65 million read

001ashford

ers in the United States. The author of the list, Richard Bangs, is a respected travel writer, who was invited by Tourism Ireland in New York to visit Ashford Castle earlier this year.

The top spot on the same list last year was taken by another of our hotels – Lough Erne Resort in Enniskillen.

Merrion Pre-Tax Fall

Pre-tax profits at the Merrion Hotel last year decreased by 11pc to €1.45m

Revenues rose by 5pc from €16.8m to €17.64m in the 12 months to the end of October last.

In January, the hotel embarked on the 22 month long construction programme that added the 12 new private residences, a new spa and restaurant overlooking the hotel garden.

The pre-tax profit also takes into account the non-cash depreciation cost of €436,961 last year and the rise in depreciation costs last year compared to a much lower depreciation charge of €276,686 in 2013 was a significant contributor to the lower pre-tax profits last year.