The tourism industry risks a period of contraction unless it embraces radical change by rebranding itself as a provider of sophisticated "designer" holidays, a conference was warned yesterday.
Urging the sector to embark on an ambitious programme of modernisation, Mr Frank Roche, professor of entrepreneurship at the UCD Graduate School of Business, said reluctance to shed old-fashioned product models that had outlived their relevancy posed a grievous threat to the Republic's attraction as a holiday destination.
"The tourism industry is facing a major point of transition and discontinuity. The future will not be the same as the past and the gap between the present and the future may be so big that, to be successful, the industry may effectively have to cross a chasm. This will pose a major managerial challenge for the industry."
The sector urgently needed to cast aside its anachronistic dependence on mass markets and tailor innovative holiday products for emerging niches, Mr Roche said. He was speaking in Dublin at a conference organised by CERT, the State-backed tourism recruitment and training agency.
Mr Roche cited a Great Gardens of Ireland tour as an example of a "designer product" tailored to appeal to a niche holidaymaker.
The imperative to tighten competitiveness, while ensuring the high service standards for which Ireland was globally renowned did not suffer, was the key task facing the sector, the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr O'Donoghue, told the seminar. "It is an industry that depends heavily on personal interaction. The challenge is to achieve productivity improvements without losing out on customer service and diminishing the quality of the fáilte for which we are so renowned."
