Is the tide turning in the U.S.?
There’s been lots of talk recently about the appearance of green shoots in the U.S economy. But is it for real, and if so how soon are we likely to see this impact on the world of travel and tourism?
We spoke with three key individuals in the last week. Click on the video clips below to see what they said.
|
|
Joe Byrne, Executive Vice President US & Canada - Tourism Ireland
|
|
Jimmy Murphy, Chairman – Brendan Worldwide Vacations
|
|
Brian Stack, President – CIE Tours International
May 26th 2009
May 26th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Nice to hear some positivity, especially from across the pond - although Ireland has got to accept a lot of the problems we face are domestic and deal with them ourselves. We cannot keep blaming external factors for everything. Value for money is the key.
May 27th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Interesting to get views direct from the market. However also interesting that none of the commentaters mentioned the issue of access - while its encouraging to hear that there will no doubt be pent up demand as the green shoots grow but will we have the level or air capacity to carry this demand when it comes? Perhaps an airline e-zine might be considered in the coming months to hear the views of this all important link to getting visitors into the Island - would also love to hear from the ferry companies and hear how they are doing as they are offering amazing value presently?!
May 27th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
A(nother) good initiative by ITIC to bring market feedback to life in this way. FYI, the latest CSO data shows USA visitors to Ireland were -10% for the Jan to March period. This was slightly ahead of the USA to Europe market which tracked -12% over the same period.
June 10th, 2009 at 9:47 am
In response to Marie’s query regarding Ferry companies - it is true that there is terrific value on offer this year and, thankfully, the markets have been responding with Car volumes on a par with last year in the first four months whilst Air traffic was down by 8% ( Failte Irl. data ) That said, there has been a price to pay in terms of yields and weak Sterling does not help. We figured earlier this year that 2009 would be the Year of the Offer and it seems that our markets are well aware of this and are prepared to wait. Some more good weather will help, particularly in the UK - our most important market.