Irish Tourism Industry Confederation - ITIC

CEO weekly diary #73: United approach, Season extensions, European review 2024 is careering to an end - weeks seems to slip by at a dizzyingly quick rate. Will we have a Government and Tourism Minister by year end? No reason why not with FF, FG and the Independents ready to tie the knot. However soundings are that it will be into January which seems unnecessarily prolonged. The latest development is that the Independent grouping wants a seat at the Cabinet table. That could conceivably be the Dept of Tourism (altho more likely Dept of Rural & Community Development) and - depending on the personality - this mightn’t be the worst result as Independents tend to have a sympathetic approach to indigenous SMEs. Qué Será Será as they say but whatever the outcome the tourism and hospitality sector has a united approach to what the incoming Minister’s priorities should be: VAT reduction, Employer PRSI reform, Tourism to an economics ministry, and the lifting of Dublin Airport’s passenger cap. Re the latter look at the impact of the Holyhead chaos to see how an island nation is so dependent on seemless access. The tourism sector is a seasonal one but less so than it used to be. Initiatives have long been deployed to stretch the season. One of the most successful ones currently is Fáilte Ireland’s ‘Winter in Dublin’ campaign. Lots of promotion of shopping, culture and festive cheer in the capital and it seems to be paying off with hotels, pubs and restaurants set for a busy Christmas run-in. January tho remains a long, cold and quiet month but at least hospitality coffers are somewhat bolstered at the end of the year. Readers of this weekly log will know my admiration and nervousness in equal measure relating to the inbound US market. Admiration because of its enormous value to Irish tourism and nervousness because of its dominant performance in recent years, which might be now at risk with Trump tariffs and tantrums. I’ve always been of the view that we need a balanced portfolio of source markets. I’m pleased therefore that Tourism Ireland will be shortly undertaking a review of European markets - industry will feed into this and hopefully it will result in stronger French, German, Scandi and Med business in years to come…🇪🇺

CEO weekly diary #72: Losing a Minister, How vs What, Ryder Cup potential Has it barely been a week since the General Election? It somehow seems longer. The Irish public went with the status quo altho in doing so gave the Greens an awful bashing 🥊. It will be FF and FG again, this time in all likelihood with a group of independents. It was the 2nd election in a row that the Tourism Minister lost their seat. In 2020 it was Shane Ross and this time around Catherine Martin. The latter had saved Irish tourism’s bacon during the pandemic, helping to win a multi-million euro survival package at the cabinet table, altho since then many in the industry feel Government didn’t give the tourism sector the attention or resources it warranted. Catherine was especially reforming and innovative in the arts portfolio with her basic income for artists scheme. My father was a painter and like so many couldn’t marry critical acclaim with commercial success - such a scheme would have given him and his peers a stable financial footing. Politics is indeed a cruel trade and I wish Catherine well in her next chapter. One of the interesting aspects of the election campaign was the fact that the 3 main parties all stated unequivocally that the Dublin Airport cap should be lifted. None of course said ‘how’ - I wrote on this subject earlier in the week in an opinion piece in the Irish Times (https://lnkd.in/e6VdycCU). This is self-evidently important for tourism - as an island nation visitors can only arrive by ferry or flight and the latter is the overwhelming choice. However it is equally important for FDI, exports, and indeed the broad Irish economy so surely must be No. 1 on the to-do list of the incoming Government. We can’t wait for a prolonged decision from the planning authority or for endless court rulings, a legislative solution must be found. And - need it be said - I am not ignoring the sustainability challenge. Tourism on the ground in Ireland is doing great stuff on this front - check out my chat with CIE Tours here as an example https://lnkd.in/e3F_kJUz - and carriers in the sky are playing their part too in the move to decarbonisation albeit aviation has extra difficulties. Our last Irish Tourism Industry Confederation - ITIC council meeting of the year this week in the festive Guinness Storehouse. The meeting included a presentation on Ryder Cup 2027 in Adare. Now that might sound a long way off but for these big global events it is just around the corner. The eyeballs on Ireland in the build-up to the Ryder Cup and during the event will be enormous and it should leave a really positive legacy in terms of Ireland as a holiday destination as well as our reputation as a world class golf venue ⛳️ .

CEO weekly diary #71: Three-way tie, Kingdom reigns, Adventure Tourism As I write this on Saturday morning it seems like a very close three-way tie at the top of the electoral leaderboard. PR-STV and all its twists and turns will throw up a few surprises and some big names are likely to lose their seats. At this view it seems like Mary-Lou has a difficult path to power with neither FF or FG ready to jump into bed with SF. So it will be the Simon and Micheál show again or Micheál and Simon depending on how the seats land. We’ll know more in a few days and any coalition will require at least a 3rd leg to the stool so overtures will be made very soon to Soc Dems/Labour/Greens/Independents (delete as appropriate). It’ll be a while before Ministers are appointed but hopefully the Tourism post gets a heavy-hitter and one that looks on it as a serious economic engine for growth and regional balance. The new Government needs to elevate indigenous industries such as tourism as well - Trump Mark 2 could put real pressure on our FDI dependency - my article making this point in the Examiner earlier this week here: https://lnkd.in/eXai_gtE I was in Killarney during the week and as I walked from the train station to the INEC I couldn’t help notice that every second building was either a hotel or guesthouse or B&B or hostel. And the houses that didn’t have a sign above their gate are probably Airbnbs or other form of visitor accommodation. Killarney truly is the tourism kingdom, I can’t think of another town that is so geared towards the hospitality economy. And it may have been a wet mid week in November but still plenty going on. A smattering of international accents but the town pivots expertly to domestic events and conferences that lengthen the season. And it was a conference that brought me to Killarney. The annual adventure tourism conference is a sector that is growing and thriving and in many ways it showcases the best that Ireland has to offer - scenery, landscape, culture - to both the domestic market and international visitor. The mood of delegates was pretty positive and they are an entrepreneurial lot but like all SMEs in tourism more needs to be done to help on competitiveness, insurance and capacity blockages. The day before the conference was appropriately dedicated to local activities (I was absent) while that evening the local brew was sampled (I was present). Killarney might be the kingdom of Guinness too as many of us can testify…