Tourism shows positive signs

Over half of Ireland’s tourism businesses have seen business improve in 2012 while one in five businesses holdings steady, according…

Over half of Ireland’s tourism businesses have seen business improve in 2012 while one in five businesses holdings steady, according to the latest Fáilte Ireland Tourism Barometer.

The survey was welcomed by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar in advance of his address tonight to Meitheal 2012, Ireland’s largest tourism trade fair, which opened this morning in the RDS in Dublin and will see an estimated 17,000 meetings take place between international tour operators and Irish tourism businesses over the next two days.

The survey found that 54 per cent of Irish tourism businesses stated that their performance was up this year compared to just 8 per cent of businesses who agreed with this sentiment in 2009.

A further 21 per cent of businesses said that they were at least holding steady, compared to 9 per cent of businesses who said so in 2009.

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Fáilte Ireland said it was encouraging that three in five businesses expect an increase in their prospects during 2012 with a further one in five expecting to at least equal this year’s performance.

Elsewhere, a Millward Brown Lansdowne poll on behalf of Fáilte Ireland interviewed 1,510 departing overseas holidaymakers between May and October 2011. Visitors (for the first time in these surveys) were asked to place Ireland as a destination to recommend on a scale of 0-10. The results showed that 67 per cent of overseas holidaymakers gave Ireland a score of 9 or 10 out of 10.

“These indications are certainly encouraging and suggest that the tourism sector is growing more optimistic about its future prospects,” Mr Varadkar said.

“However, as tourism operators know too well, we have a long way to go to recover the heyday of four years ago. As planning for next year begins at our Meitheal tourism trade fair, I am very encouraged to see that three out of five tourists are very satisfied with their experience of Ireland.”

Fáilte Ireland CEO, Shaun Quinn said the trade fair - which will see 310 international tour operators conduct meetings with around 600 Irish accommodation providers, activity providers and those promoting Irish attractions - was “phenomenally important” for the industry, as well as acting as a good indicator of international and domestic sentiment about Irish tourism.

“There is an optimistic tone in some of our key markets, most notably the US, Germany and France. That would tally very much with more optimistic mood within the Irish trade as well," he said.

“They are much more optimistic today than they were in two or three years even, apart from Britain which has been a difficult market for the last while,” Mr Quinn said. He added Britain's case was largely down to economic circumstances “but we have started to turn a corner in that market as well”.