One out of five visitors to Ireland flock to Galway

One in five overseas visitors to Ireland last year came to Galway, making it the third most popular destination in Ireland in what was the busiest year yet for the Wild Atlantic Way since its inception.

Fáilte Ireland’s Chairman, Michael Cawley, the senior management team and the board of Fáilte Ireland – the National Tourism Development Authority – gathered in Kylemore Abbey, Connemara, last week for its quarterly meeting.

A number of representatives from local Galway tourism businesses from the region were invited to brief the Authority members on their season to date and their future business plans.

These included the Connemara Sands Hotel, the Renvyle House Hotel, Blath na Mara Seaweed, Udaras na Gaeltachta, Galway County Council and the Connemara Aran Islands Tourism Network.

The Authority told the meeting that the agency is continuing to work on the Visitor Experience Development Plan for the Connemara Coast and Aran Islands which was launched in 2018. It will identify the stand out features for the area and aims to increase visitor dwell time and spend.

Fáilte Ireland’s vision for the Wild Atlantic Way is to deliver sustainable growth to all areas of the West Coast for the benefit of local communities and businesses.

One of the agency’s main aims for Galway is to gain a broader spread of tourism across all parts of the county including Connemara Coast and the Aran Island and extend the season so that tourism businesses can stay open beyond the traditional summer season.

Fáilte Ireland would continue to invest in this, stressed Miriam Kennedy, Head of the Wild Atlantic Way at Fáilte Ireland.

“Last year was our strongest yet since we launched it in 2014, we had over 3.7m international visitors, over 4.7m domestic visitors and between them they spent €3bn, supporting over 80,000 jobs along the West Coast.

“Galway continues to be a popular tourist destination – 18% of overseas tourists to Ireland visited Galway in 2018, making it one of the three most popular counties in the country for overseas tourists.”

However, this had been a challenging year for the tourism industry particularly with uncertainty around Brexit.

“As the National Tourism Development Authority, we continue to work with the local industry to sustain Ireland as a high-quality, competitive and best in class tourism destination.

“We do this by supporting tourism enterprises to innovate and through delivering tailored programmes that help assess the risks, respond to changes, access tourists using the right channels and diversify into other markets.”

Over the last five years, the agency has invested amounts of between €1.95m and €73,000 on ten projects across the country, with the investment totalling €10.5m between 2015 and 2019.

This summer, Kylemore Abbey opened its new visitor experience with €1.7m Fáilte Ireland investment. It has also spent €1.9m in the Connemara National Park to develop of an additional 10.5 km of new trails, a children’s natural play area and carpark facilities. Both are now open for visitors year-round.

Fáilte Ireland has identified festivals as a key driver for tourism growth, particularly during off-season times. Over the past two years the agency has invested €729,000 into four Galway festivals – the Galway International Arts Festival, the Oyster Festival, the Galway Film Fleadh and the Vodafone Comedy Festival with a further €73,000 given to the two local authorities to distribute to local festivals.

The latest industry figures show that 38% of holiday makers stay in hotels with one fifth staying in guesthouses and B&Bs. Hotels are favoured by Americans and the British while the French and German tourists prefer to stay in homes.

In 2018, there were 84 hotels across Galway with 11,913 beds, 16 guesthouses with 425 beds, 122 B&Bs with 1,300 beds, 107 self-catering units with 544 beds, 14 hostels with 1,123 beds, four caravan and camping parks which can accommodate 799 people and a further 14 homes with the Irish Welcome standard with 595 beds.