Night-time markets and drive-ins among ‘staycationer’ proposals

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – Night-time food and craft markets, drive-in movies and music gigs, and dedicated performance spaces for buskers are among the initiatives being touted to attract ‘staycationers’ to re-start Galway City’s dormant tourist industry.

A series of measures have been proposed for the city centre, including temporary pedestrian areas to be created and the waiving of City Council fees for tables and chairs outside cafés, restaurants and bars.

“We need to really think outside the box, and we need to generate ideas to bring Irish visitors to Galway to help save the Summer season,” Cllr Alan Cheevers told the Galway City Tribune.

“We need to look at supporting a food trail, getting all restaurants involved. The drive-in movies could possibly be at Galway Racecourse, and maybe gigs too. It could also be looked into at the Black Box car park. It’s an American concept, where you have a proper open space where people can drive to and watch movies or a music gig while safely socially distant.

“The night-time market would be very similar to what’s happening in Europe. We could have food markets at night, or a market for crafts and other goods, just to bring people back into the city.”

Meanwhile, the Galway restaurant manager who sits on the Government’s new Tourism Recovery Taskforce has said the most immediate action to save the hospitality industry would be to reduce the social distancing restriction to one metre, cut the VAT rate and allow people to travel for further than 20km so that domestic tourists can revive the sector in Galway.

Eimear Killian of Brasserie on the Corner has been appointed to a special Tourism Recovery Taskforce set up to prepare a plan on how best the Irish tourism sector can adapt and recover as a result of the Covid-19 crisis.
This is a shortened preview version of this article. Please remember that without advertising revenue and people buying and subscribing to our newspapers, this website would not exist. You can read the full article by buying a digital edition of this week’s Galway City Tribune HERE.