Bord Failte holds onto tourists despite losing executives

Bord Failte may be losing its senior executives but at least it is managing to hold onto tourists. Latest figures show more than 5.8 million room nights and 9.4 million bednights (there is sometimes more than one bed in a room) were sold last year.

That represents an increase of 5 per cent in the number of rooms sold and a 2 per cent increase in bed sales. For anyone thinking of investing in hotels, the figures represents good news, serving to underline the strength of the sector.

The survey showed that Dublin had the highest room and hotel occupancy of all regions last year. It filled 77 per cent of available rooms.

Dublin's top hotels also fared extremely well, with an 82 per cent occupancy rate, well above the average. The capital also managed to attract the highest number of foreign visitors.

Five-star hotels continue to rely most heavily on overseas tourists they comprised 74 per cent of guest nights.

According to Bord Failte, five-star hotels rely particularly on North Americans (32 per cent of bednights).

Interestingly, the survey notes that there was a general decline in the mainland European holiday market last year, and this resulted in a drop of 14 per cent in guest nights in that sector.

However, by contrast the US and British markets and the domestic market was buoyant.

The latter accounted for 46 per cent of all guest nights last year and its importance increased during the off-season months of January to March and October to December.

Bord Failte attributes this to an increased marketing campaign last year, aimed at encouraging Irish people to take short-break holidays during the off-season months.

A similar campaign is being mounted this year.

Meanwhile, the tourism promotion organisation will have to mount another campaign one of the recruitment variety to replace director general Matt McNulty who left last month and Orla Brannigan, who was the general manager for Europe. She departed to join Flexicom, a Dublin-based software company.