FÁILTE IRELAND is hoping to exploit the economic downturn with an aggressive marketing campaign encouraging people to holiday at home.
This follows research conducted in recent weeks which showed that 23 per cent of people were planning to reduce spending on foreign holidays this year but just 10 per cent of people said they would spend less on home holidays.
More than 60 per cent of those surveyed said they were planning to cut spending on eating out and socialising.
Fáilte Ireland chief executive Shaun Quinn said this would be the agency’s biggest home holiday campaign. “Holidaying at home is the new going away,” he said.
He pointed to research which found that the number of people who said they would definitely take a foreign short break this year had dipped 38 per cent when compared with last year. But the number definitely planning a short home break had remained the same at 27 per cent.
Mr Quinn said the indications were that more people were also considering taking their main holiday at home this year. He said he expected that the self-catering sector would be the main beneficiary if there was a swing towards home holidays.
The agency’s campaign, which involves a €3 million-plus investment from the tourism body as well as industry funding, will be rolled out in the weeks ahead with television, radio, press and online advertising. The campaign will focus on the convenience and value of holidaying at home.
The drive follows research which showed that 34 per cent of people quoted the hassle of air and sea travel as a key reason for taking a holiday at home.
Fáilte Ireland’s regional development director, John Concannon, said the Irish consumer was favourably disposed to taking a break at home this year “but 71 per cent of people say they will compare costs and prices before making a final decision about the destination of their holiday”.
He urged hoteliers to take a long-term view when pricing rooms at times of concerts and festivals. “If you are going to put unrealistic pricing into the marketplace . . . you are not going to get repeat business and it’s all about repeat business,” he said.
Hotels are regularly criticised for inflating their prices to take advantage of concerts in the locality. U2 only announced their world tour dates yesterday morning but last week it was reported that some Dublin hotels had more than doubled their daily room rates on the nights when the band was expected to play at Croke Park.
The agency research also found that 53 per cent of all home breaks were now planned using the internet. Previously, family and friends were the main tool used in planning a home holiday.
The Google search engine was the main site used by people planning holidays, followed by the www.discoverireland.ie website run by Fáilte Ireland.
The home pages of hotels and BBs were the next most popular sites for holiday planning, following by the Trip Advisor website, hotels.com and the Yahoo search engine.
The Discover Ireland website has been revamped to coincide with the new campaign and a new- look Discover Ireland guidebook and planner will also be available from tourist offices around the country.
While the internet was the most useful tool in planning a holiday, the phone was used in 60 per cent of cases to book the holiday.
Some 34 per cent of people surveyed said they had booked their holiday online.
Last year, Irish people took 4.3 million holidays at home and spent more than €1 billion on these trips. Asked to rate their satisfaction with Irish breaks, 60 per cent of home holidaymakers said they were “very satisfied” with a further 36 per cent claiming to be “fairly satisfied”.
The number of tourists coming to Ireland to walk has grown from a low of 168,000 in 2003 to 511,000 in 2007, Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Eamon Ó Cuív said at the weekend.
