Perception vs reality: How Ireland is marketed to tourists abroad

We Irish routinely moan about our weather, we grumble about the quality or quantity of food we are served in restaurants and we complain about the absence of entertainment laid on by others to keep us amused. And if giving out about the price of everything was a national sport, this little island of ours would be world-beating.

In recent weeks, there has been an outpouring of national outrage about the shambles that Dublin Airport has become at the busiest of times, while Joe Duffy’s Liveline has been hopping mad with people infuriated by the spiralling cost of car hire and hotels close to home.

There is no doubt some of the scenes at the airport have been appalling and the manner in which people were let down by DAA, the authority which runs the facility, absolutely unacceptable.

And there is no escaping the fact that the cost of car hire has gone through the roof with sky-high prices, potentially adding thousands of euro to the cost of a holiday in Ireland. The weather can be pretty terrible too, and some of the meals served in some of the restaurants across the country can be mediocre at best. All the while, prices are only going in one direction.

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But are we, just maybe, too hard on ourselves?

Ireland is not alone in struggling to come to terms with a dramatic resurgence in leisure travel, and holiday prices in most of the popular destinations across Europe have climbed since 2019, before Covid-19 struck, while spiralling inflation is having much the same impact everywhere you look.

In Florida, traditionally one of the cheapest places to rent a car, prices have climbed by as much as 300 per cent in three years, while across Europe price increases of well in excess of 100 per cent have been reported.

And Dublin Airport is not the only one that is struggling, with huge problems managing passenger numbers in airports in Manchester, London and Amsterdam — to name just three.

But while Ireland focuses its ire on Ireland, others appear more sanguine about the state of us, and the way we view our country can bear little resemblance to how it is viewed from the outside.

In 2019, more than 11 million people from overseas chose to come here for their holidays. Most of them had a great time.

They did not complain about the weather because they knew what they were in for, and prepared accordingly. How often have you heard the phrase, widely attributed to the sensible Scandinavians, that there is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing? Some folk even came here to escape the blistering heat and the endless sun we often seek when we go on holidays.

Visitors didn’t give out about cost because they expected to pay high prices and certainly did not come here because they figured the Guinness would be cheap. And they actively enjoyed many of the things that we may take for granted or even mildly dislike — such as sitting in a pub on a rainy afternoon nursing a pint, or driving along a bumpy country road shrouded in mist trying to find something fun to do.

Tourism is a multibillion euro business in Ireland in good times, employing hundreds of thousands of people, often in places where employment is hard to come by. The pot of gold is guarded jealously by Fáilte Ireland, which is forever conducting research into how others see us.

Its research suggests that beautiful scenery is the main motivation for travel here, with 91 per cent of visitors citing it as a reason for choosing Ireland. Plenty of things to do: natural attractions, history and culture, friendly people and safety are reasons which score percentages in the 80s.

Once here, 90 per cent of holidaymakers have told researchers they were satisfied with Ireland’s suitability as a touring destination, with very few complaints about accommodation.

“Value for money is about the quality of the experience or service that holidaymakers get, as much as price,” is Fáilte Ireland’s mantra. It says 55 per cent of overseas holidaymakers rate Ireland as good or very good value for money.

Covid-19 brought leisure travel to a standstill, so much of the research from our tourism authority about what makes Ireland a good or bad place to visit, and what is to the forefront of the minds of those who travel here, dates from pre-pandemic times.

Irish Times correspondents in some of our key tourism markets offer a more up-to-date glimpse of how we are viewed from the outside. And the good news is, while we might be hard on ourselves, others seem more upbeat about the prospects of a holiday in Ireland.

According to Derek Scally, in Berlin, the Germans are looking forward to coming back to Ireland and aren’t overly concerned about prices or airport shenanigans:

Germany gave the world the term “wanderlust” — the love of travel — and German tourists, desperate to scratch their post-pandemic travel itch, have Ireland in their sights this summer.

According to a leading Ireland travel expert in Germany, current concerns about the cost of hotels and rental cars or the wait times at Dublin Airport are “an Irish consciousness for a problem that is not German”.

Galway-born Kevin Keogh is based in Frankfurt as vice-president of sales with DER Touristik. For half a century the travel group has sent more Germans to Ireland than any other. Pre-pandemic Germany was Ireland’s third-largest market, attracting 728,000 visitors who spent €443 million in 2019.

“We don’t see anything negative with Ireland at the moment,” says Keogh. “Germans couldn’t spend their money for two years and the German customers that go to Ireland aren’t poor: they have money and are willing to spend it without looking at cost.”

Also working in Ireland’s favour, he says, is a post-pandemic trend in Europe away from sun package holidays towards individual trips in northern Europe. “Destinations one to two flight hours away are profiting most from the restart in tourism because, after the pandemic, people want to travel — but not too far,” he says.

Looking at Ireland from the outside, Keogh wonders if people back home are a little harsh on their own country.

Germans are notoriously price-conscious customers, but are willing to spend if they consider something to be value for money. And for the comfortable, 55-plus German travellers, Keogh says, Ireland is still a good deal.

Those who travel with DER Touristik companies know Ireland won’t be a cheap destination, and the company, as a big buyer, negotiates competitive prices with Irish hotels and car-rental firms.

To avoid price peaks, the group encourages customers to avoid Dublin at weekends. Similarly, guided and self-guide itineraries visit the capital and other tourist hotspots on weekdays. On its website, the company is offering a self-guided week’s holiday in Ireland in early August with bed and breakfast for two sharing for €866. Add a rental car, however, and that price is likely to double.

“That’s nothing to do with Ireland specifically, more the delivery shortages in the car industry,” says a booking agent.

Last year DER Touristik organised an Ireland trip for 200 German travel agents ending with a conference in Killarney after three days, sampling horse riding, golf and hiking options.

“They were totally flabbergasted by the offering,” Keogh says. He says the travel industry in Germany recognises Tourism Ireland and its chief executive Niall Gibbons as “by far the most active, savvy government agency” in the post-pandemic travel market.

Of the German travel agents invited to Ireland, he says, 80 per cent were first-timers.

“The main challenge is getting people to Ireland the first time, then they come back two [or] three times,” he says. While Ireland debates the cost of holidays, Keogh says holidays in general are 20 per cent more expensive than 2019 and the Ireland numbers speak for themselves: “The level of repeat visitors for Ireland is one of our highest.”

From Lara Marlowe’s perspective in Paris, things are also looking good for the summer ahead but, she warns, the French will be watching the storm clouds of cost closely:

Ireland remains the sixth most popular tourist destination for the French. Only Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and France itself attract more French tourists, a study commissioned by Tourism Ireland found this spring.

The number of French visitors to Ireland peaked in 2019, before the pandemic, at 557,000.

“Holidays are really important to the French,” says Monica MacLaverty, the Paris-based manager for Tourism Ireland for France, Italy and Spain. With French people taking 56 million outbound holidays annually, the country is the world’s third largest outbound holiday market.

“We target a culturally curious demographic, people who are really interested in getting under the skin of the destination,” MacLaverty says. “The French are looking for authenticity, getting off the beaten track, meeting the locals.”

MacLaverty says the chaos at Dublin Airport is “unhelpful” and Tourism Ireland is “obviously alarmed by it”. It has not yet been picked up by French media, however.

Monitoring of French social media shows that cost is becoming an increasingly important factor. Tour operators have complained of the difficulty of sourcing three-star accommodation for coach tours, because so much capacity has been given over to Ukrainian refugees fleeing war. “There isn’t as much three-star capacity, so they find themselves having to charge more for four-star properties,” MacLaverty says. “It’s not easy.”

The fact that French tourism spreads out over the year also makes them desirable tourists, with 40 per cent visiting in summer, 26 per cent in spring. “They come early in the season, because they love rhododendrons, long evenings and going to Connemara,” says MacLaverty.

“The rugged beauty of Connemara just delivers for the French,” she adds. The pop singer Michel Sardou’s inter-generational classic Les Lacs de Connemara has made the region famous for more than 40 years. A new television documentary about Sardou features seven minutes about Connemara.

Promotion of the 2,500km of the Wild Atlantic Way has strengthened the attraction of the west and southwest, which are visited by 76 per cent of French tourists.

Tourism Island is also promoting tours involving the Game of Thrones studios in Banbridge, Co Down, the centenary of the publication of Ulysses and a new Norman theme in the southeast, where French tourists arrive on ferries to Rosslare.

Traditional Irish music is seen as an effective marketing tool. A Tourism Ireland advert broadcast from February through April featured the Kesh jig. “Traditional music resonates strongly with the French,” MacLaverty says. “It is instantly recognisable as Ireland, so it helps us stand out.”

Martin Wall is The Irish Times’s man on the ground in Washington, and he says Irish tourism authorities based in North America are reporting strong bookings for the year and have received no “substantial” negative feedback from passengers about their experiences at Dublin Airport:

Tourism Ireland, in the aftermath of the pandemic, is also focusing on the “culturally curious” segment of the market in North America, a group aged between 25 and 65 with a strong desire and propensity to travel internationally. It also focuses on the golf and business market which it describes as “high-yield niche segments” of the market.

The delays experienced by passengers at Dublin Airport last weekend, and the missed flights as a result, were not widely reported in the main US media. There was a reference in a Business Insider report which mainly concentrated on problems in UK airports.

The problems at Dublin Airport and earlier reports of major price hikes in the cost of car rental in Ireland were covered by Irish American media such as Irish Central.

Alison Metcalfe, executive vice-president of Tourism Ireland for the US and Canada, says it has “seen great interest and strong bookings for Ireland in 2022 and looks forward to rebuilding visitor numbers from the US back to pre-Covid record highs.

“While we are, of course, aware of the many challenges and concerns facing travellers at this time, we have not seen significant changes in booking patterns, and we have not received any substantial negative feedback about issues at Dublin Airport.”

Denis Staunton is The Irish Times London editor and is acutely aware of just how important Britain is to Irish tourism:

Britain is Ireland’s biggest market for tourism, accounting for two out of every five visitors from abroad and a quarter of all overseas tourism revenue. In 2019, almost 5 million visitors came from Britain to the island of Ireland, generating about €1.45 billion in revenue.

John Ó Ceallaigh, a luxury travel writer and founder of content and consultancy agency Lute, believes there is potential to pitch Ireland to bigger spenders from Britain. “It’s not perceived as a luxury destination by most British travellers currently. And what I find consistently is when people go and are open to that type of experience and have the means to pay for it, it’s on par or surpasses what they encounter throughout the rest of the world,” he says.

British tourists seldom complain about prices in Ireland and although eating and drinking can be more expensive than in Britain, other costs such as rail travel are significantly lower. British airports have experienced the same problems as Dublin in recent weeks with staff shortages driving delays and flight cancellations.

The Common Travel Area means British visitors to Ireland do not face any of the post-Brexit hassle they often suffer at passport control in other European countries. But, Ó Ceallaigh says, the biggest advantage Ireland has is its national brand which ensures people are predisposed towards liking the place and believing they will have a good time there with friendly people.

“I think it’s just a matter of engaging with those high-net consumers and letting them know that Ireland is as great as they already assumed but, additionally, it has really comfortable places for them to stay,” he says.

Ó Ceallaigh says he would focus the campaign to win high-end visitors on places outside Dublin. “When I’m talking to my clients or people I’m associated with, I always recommend that they prioritise going to country house hotels and castle hotels on the west coast and in the midlands ... I don’t think there’s much global recognition or even much recognition in Britain about what inventory is available for them.”

While the views from afar are unlikely to do much to alter our national psyche and make us suddenly less harsh on ourselves, the upbeat assessment from others of where we are in the world might, at least, be one reason to be cheerful as we prepare for the first proper summer season since 2019.