£100m deal for tourism fund may involve levy on visitors

Discussions on the establishment of a £100 million Irish tourism marketing fund to be implemented over five years are close to agreement, the Minister for Tourism has confirmed. It is likely to coincide with the introduction of a new levy on tourists coming to the Republic.

Meetings between his Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Bord Failte and Irish tourism industry interests had reached a fair degree of agreement, and the main outstanding issue was agreement with the Department of Finance, Dr McDaid said yesterday.

Speaking after a briefing to the tourism industry on Bord Failte's 1999 marketing plan, the Minister said the industry was beginning to realise the benefits of having a baseline annual sum of £20 million in place for marketing, especially in the light of a substantial cut likely in EU supports for Irish tourism after 1999.

There was growing acceptance within industry of an access levy, he said. This would be separate from the controversial £3 overnight tax planned by Dublin Corporation for visitors.

Dr McDaid said he had written to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, outlining grave concern over the possibility that local authorities might impose their own tourist levies, particularly as he believed the mechanism introduced under the concept of "polluter pays" laws could get out of hand.

If the £100 million package was to be ready for implementation from 2000, arrangements had to be finalised in time for the forthcoming Finance Bill, which was due in February.

The cut in EU supports was inevitable, despite the economic benefits tourism was bringing to less-developed regions. Nonetheless, it was vital that the National Conference Centre be allowed go ahead.

On the 1999 plan, there would be more than £6 million in additional spending on marketing to achieve a 7 per cent growth in visitor numbers, and 9 per cent in foreign revenue tourism earnings.

Bord Failte has initiated a comprehensive review to establish why tourist numbers from France and Germany this year were so disappointing. Its chief executive, Mr John Dully, said it was a matter of getting the right core message across and marketing mix. It was not caused by the product becoming jaded. Potential tourists, hearing of the "Celtic Tiger", imagined its associated development meant everything that was beautiful about Ireland was gone, he added.

While the Tourism Brand Ireland initiative had not met with the kind of private-sector support hoped for, the Bord Failte chairman, Mr Mark Mortell, said, successful EU-supported investment meant the private sector could now see something tangible, and the potential benefits from participating in it.

Next year would see the phenomenon of the "euro-zone", predicted Bord Failte's general central marketing manager, Mr Paul O'Toole. Though many European countries had only moderate tourism growth prospects, euro-using countries would grow at a faster rate than the US, Britain and Japan.