Connemara’s tourism chiefs are doing it for themselves!

Date Published: 08-Dec-2010

For the first time in its long history as a prime tourism destination, Connemara industry operators are banding together to market and develop the region in a concerted bid to entice more overseas and domestic visitors to stay longer and broaden their experience once they get there.

A steering group made up of 14 local operators and representatives from Fáilte Ireland, Galway County County and Údaras na Gaeltachta, led by chairman George Finnegan has drawn up a dynamic action plan for the whole of Connemara.

“This initiative was spearheaded in order to bring various parties who have an input into the success of Connemara into one unified forced at a time when funds are diminishing every day,” explained Mr Finnegan, a former hotelier, who is a lecturer in the hotel school at GMIT.

“There have been attempts in the past to work together but certainly not at the level we’re talking about with this steering group.

“There’s some serious scope for the development of tourism in this region. Our objective is to protect this unique tourism product which has been preserved and protected by interested parties who had an innate sense of care for our natural beauty over the past generations.”

The group, which has been meeting once a month since April, is to hold one of the first networking workshops in the country where operators will learn the benefits of creating packages for visitors which offer a better holiday experience.

The ‘speed dating’ style workshop will allow operators to learn more about the activities, food operators and attractions that are available in the region which can be grouped together in a package to be marketed in the 2011 sales blitz focusing on the UK, France, the US and Germany under the ‘Wild at Heart’ campaign.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.