Recovery on the way – but delayed
June marks the halfway stage, and a time when it should be possible to be fairly clear about the outcome for the whole year. But forecasting has become a hazardous business as potential visitors delay decisions on travel to nearer the time of departure.
There are mixed signals from some key overseas markets, but given the nature of a particularly late booking pattern, there is still business out there to be won for this year.
Ireland’s nearest and largest source market, Britain, is a case in point, where despite a horrible start to the year there is still much to fight for.
ITIC spoke with Niall Gibbons, Chief Executive of Tourism Ireland, about this and other factors at play in the current year.
Click on the image below to hear what he had to say.
If you would like to comment on anything you’ve heard here, leave a comment below!
June 17th 2010
June 18th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
There you have it …. our exposure to entirely external influences yet again highlighted as reasons for our underperformance. It seems like someone has turned off the Ireland switch in the UK and we are really unsure where the fusebaord is located!!! Is Lifestyle tourism the key to reaching out to the new generation of Brits – our over reliance on stags, hens and vfr’s has blinded us to the need to critically appraise the existing product and adapt it for a new generation of user. Our Domestic Market needs the new product offering too and we should be using this time to regenerate it. Radical reform of all tourism administration boundaries and product offering must be on the agenda and government funding to effect the change. lets do this in the down time to catch the crest of the arriving wave later. The TI Farmleigh summit should be expanded out to be more inclusive and radical in approach. Niall mentioned “Luck” in his final few words – it is indeed a vital ingredient to any enterprise but there are many who say that you make your own luck!!. On the question of Trans Atlantic, Shannon was always seasonal – it just that we had more influence in maintaing routes in the past. Delta and Continental have shown how smaller air craft operated from abroad can beat the high cost base of a domestic flag carrier. There will be recovery but how smart are we to make it a strong recovery.
June 19th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Regarding the UK – Ireland just isn’t cool in the way it became in the mid 1990s which was a unique time, so the kind of buzz and growth that was experienced then can’t be artificially recreated.
Of course encouraging and developing the arts, festivals and more world class attractions wouldn’t hurt, but these require resources beyond tourism and funding that probably isn’t available now. Developing niche products like surfing should also be lucrative, as long as it’s done properly and not overdone.
Plus in spite of recent value for money improvements, we’re still too expensive. Food & drink prices remain stubbornly expensive as is highlighted. Not until these costs are reduced further without losing quality are visitors from a UK facing deep austerity measures in the years ahead going to come here.
It is about £3 for a pint of ale in a pub in central London. In Dublin the price of a pint remains around €4.80+.
It should be around €3 – €3.50 with €4 regarded as an expensive pint – because British tourists who have a similar pub culture and social habits to ourselves won’t be attracted by our prices no matter how friendly we are or how much craic we can create.
Plus the increased familiarity British people now have with Ireland as a result of things like Westlife, Father Ted, Graham Norton, Dara O’Briain, Boyzone, River Dance etc. can’t be underestimated. Our success in these things has got to have reduced the mystique of Ireland in Britain which cannot be overlooked and probably should be factored into any promotional strategies and campaigns.
Regarding Trans Atlantic, I never did get the Shannon stopover and suspect instead of fighting the long overdue inevitable that it would have been better to lobby for a proper Japanese style high speed rail link between Dublin and Limerick instead of forcing passengers to land where most of them didn’t want to go.
Never mind the environmental and financial costs of forcing large aircraft to land, take off and climb twice between North America to Dublin and back; the Shannon stopover undoubtedly prevented routes being developed into Dublin that would have been well bedded in before the current downturn. And had these routes been in place it’s plausible they’d have been maintained throughout the bust (even if at reduced levels) until the upturn came.
I remember reading some years ago the DAA were in discussions with various airlines evaluating services to Dublin from up to 20 US and Canadian gateways. These discussions were in preparation for what was supposed to be an imminent Open Skies deal and an end to the Shannon Stopover. Needless to say Open Skies dragged on for years, Shannon remained and this potential was never realised.
It’s probably not possible to calculate how much the Shannon Stopover cost Ireland over decades, but it’s likely to have been billions and is the kind of issue where regional interests are put ahead of the national interest that should be prevented in future.
June 22nd, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Good luck to all involved in the new Waterford Crystal venture which opens today.
Let’s hope it’s a huge success and that some big multinational doesn’t buy it up and ruin in the future.
Re: the topic – agree about prices in Ireland remaining far too high – especially food and drink across the board.
July 9th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Recovery is a long way away. Its high time that Tourism Ireland admits that Irish Tourism has totally collapsed and the powers that be have their heads buried in the sand. Rates and numbers have collapsed , the next thing to go will be standards. This is a tourism emergency and unless all tourism agencies get their act together, recovery will be a LONG LONG hard road.