Tourism steering group proposed for the west

Rural areas have lost out in tourism growth because too many organisations have been operating without any clear leadership or…

Rural areas have lost out in tourism growth because too many organisations have been operating without any clear leadership or strategy, according to a report published this week by the Western Development Commission.

The Blueprint for Tourism Development in the West includes 48 proposals, the main one being that a high-level steering group be appointed to implement a common strategy.

It says a major shift in policy and practice is needed if tourism growth is to be dispersed and that present structures are not equipped to deal with the extent and scale of intervention required.

The Minister for Tourism, Dr McDaid, who presented the report, pledged to implement its findings and said there had been a lot of inefficiency in the past.

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Dr McDaid said he backed the proposal to set up a steering group and he had asked Bord Failte to nominate a senior executive to chair it. The WDC hopes the group will hold its first meeting before Christmas.

The Minister said he would find the £100,000 requested in the report to fund the implementation of its findings.

He said a strategic approach was needed and he would not tolerate "overlap" as there had been too much of this in the past. In the regions in particular, different organisations were trying to do the same job, and most of the funding to various groups had been spent on printing brochures.

"For example, there are five areas of Donegal for which there are five different brochures, and research has shown that 70 per cent of brochures end up in bins," he said.

The chief executive of the Western Development Commission, Mr Liam Scollan, said that while marketing, product development and access were all crucial, the organisation of tourism was also very important.

"The organisation isn't right at the moment. There are too many organisations. There is too much fragmentation and there is no clear leadership, especially as regards tourism in rural areas," Mr Scollan said.

Leadership, through the proposed steering group, would ensure that energies and funding from various sources were channelled in one direction, he said.

It was not about creating a new organisation but in raising the level of operation of tourism within the region, Mr Scollan said.

The 95-page report examined the tourism industry in the seven western counties from Donegal to Clare. Of the whole region, two-thirds of visits to fee-paying attractions occur in Cos Clare and Galway. Co Galway accounts for almost half the bed nights of the entire region. There are virtually no major accommodation centres (250-plus rooms) away from the coast.