Local authorities and tourism bodies in underdeveloped coastal areas could play a key role in providing sustainable year-round employment, a conference on marine tourism has heard.
Addressing the conference at Inchydoney, Co Cork, the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Fahey, said the time had come to look beyond existing activities and to develop marine tourism and leisure as a promotion which could achieve real growth under the present National Development Plan.
Mr Fahey said the allocation of £20 million by the Government for the marine-leisure tourism sector under the plan could support a public-private partnership, if enough imagination was shown on all sides. "There is a sustainable year-round market for high-quality tourism products, both traditional and new, around some of Ireland's most magnificent but under-developed coastal areas," he said.
"Their development would certainly require vision, careful planning, integration, appropriate incentives and a co-ordinated effort across all the relevant public entities, and the ultimate objective should be sustainable socio-economic benefits in peripheral areas which stand to benefit most from development," Mr Fahey said. Three areas should be reviewed as a matter of urgency by the tourism sector, the Minister went on. They included the extent to which existing county plans could facilitate the development of new marine projects; the availability of private-sector investment for development in more peripheral areas; and the market potential domestically and internationally for marine tourism products.
Also, the development of marine-based health tourism had the potential to create a new niche market. Ireland was ideally suited, particularly along the western seaboard, for activities such as hydrotherapy and thalassotherapy. The experience in France showed that marine-based health tourism was a potentially lucrative market, he added.
"We need to look at our coastline and identify those outstandingly beautiful locations that would lend themselves to careful and sensitive tourism development, bringing year-round employment and sustainability to some of Ireland's less developed regions," Mr Fahey said.