Ireland's tourism industry needs to 'up its game' in the Mainland Europe market and be less UK-centric, according to one of the country's leading tourism figures.
Speaking to Breakfast Business on Newstalk, Professor Jim Deegan, who is the Director of the National Centre for Tourism Policy at the University of Limerick, and a Fáilte Ireland board member, said that while Brexit and Donald Trump's election had caused uncertainty, Ireland is well on course to reach the 2025 target of €5 billion in overseas revenue by the end of this year.
Although, Deegan added that Ireland needs to be more aggressive in its targets and avoid UK tunnel vision when marketing the country overseas, reports Newstalk.com.
The continental Europe market share has seen it grow to 36 per cent, which is close to the revenue share from UK tourists but Deegan commented that Ireland shouldn't "turn our back on Britain". He pointed out that "Mainland European markets over a long period of time have been performing far better to other markets relative to the amount of money we invest in them".
Discussing the reasons for the lack of marketing in this growing market, Deegan said, "One in particular might be our long-standing issue with our languages ability in this country. And secondly, we've built up an infrastructure in English language-speaking countries. And sometimes for agencies it can be a little bit difficult to unravel that."
He also suggested in the interview that Tourism Ireland are disproportionately marketing Northern Ireland at the expense of broadening the country's marketing span but "to be fair to the Tourism Ireland people, they have a remit and they're following it".
