HOTELIERS WELCOME GOVERNMENT’S NEW TOURISM STRATEGY
People, Place and Policy – Growing Tourism to 2015
Monday, 23rd March 2015: The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) welcomes the Government’s new tourism policy launched today by Taoiseach Enda Kenny, TD, and Minister Paschal Donohoe, TD. Attending the launch, IHF President Stephen McNally acknowledged the important support provided by the Government in ensuring tourism remains at the heart of Ireland’s economic policy and in recognising the valuable role played by tourism in growing the Irish economy and generating increased employment.
The IHF looks forward to working with the Government to achieve the targets set out in the tourism strategy, including plans to grow overseas visitors to 10 million per annum by 2025. This would increase annual revenues from overseas visitors to €5 billion* and result in an additional 50,000 jobs, bringing total employment in the sector to over 250,000.
“The Government’s continued strong focus on tourism is critical for the many thousands of tourism businesses throughout the country and is an important recognition of Irish tourism’s potential to continue delivering much-needed jobs growth,” says Mr McNally.
“We’ve made significant progress in recent years, creating over 33,000 much-needed jobs since 2011. However, we are only at the beginning of the recovery in Irish tourism. A lot more can be achieved as outlined in the Government’s tourism policy, building on the unprecedented levels of collaboration that now exist between tourism industry partners – including closer coordination among businesses, local communities, state agencies and local authorities.”
Mr McNally notes that there is an increased sense of optimism in the tourism industry as it continues to grow market share and attract growing numbers of overseas visitors. He states: “Our industry has significantly upped its game on the marketing front in recent years, with targeted programmes from Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland achieving strong cut through in reinvigorating our tourism brand and Ireland’s image as a holiday destination. We have, without doubt, become more imaginative in developing our tourism product and in giving holidaymakers new and compelling reasons to visit. Today’s new tourism strategy represents the next step in this journey for our industry.”
The tourism industry as a whole accounts for 4% of gross national product (GNP) and now supports almost 205,000 jobs - equivalent to 11% of total employment in the country, some 54,000 of which are in the hotels sector across 801 hotels and 226 guesthouses.
(*Note: figure for annual revenues from overseas visitors excludes airline carrier receipts)
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