Bord Failte's corporate strategy for the next five years has finally been published. It is hardly dramatic and is couched in the language of the management consultant. This is unfortunate as tourism is an industry which does not lend itself to conventional industrial measurement. A war breaks out in Kosovo and, suddenly, hotels in Turkey are empty. Tourism is the kind of industry which needs imagination and creativity to succeed - and not a little luck. It is not amenable to the discipline of the assembly line or any other kind of normal industrial production.
The absence of vision in Bord Failte's strategy is all the more worrying in that tourism has taken on such importance in the overall economy. Foreign exchange earnings from tourism reached £2.3 billion in 1998 compared with £800 million in 1988. Tourism supported 126,700 jobs - or 8.2 per cent of all employment - in 1998. It accounted for 6.4 per cent of GNP and 5 per cent of exports. It contributed £1.5 billion to the Exchequer, the greater part of it from out-of-State visitors.
This is another way of saying that we are now as a nation heavily dependent on tourism. Our success is attracting overseas visitors matters considerably more than it did even ten years ago. Bord Failte does not address itself sufficiently to the threats to that success. Overcrowding in popular areas like the Ring of Kerry is a threat to the quality of the Irish holiday. So is pollution in all its forms, not least the proliferation of tax-driven building development in many seaside resorts.
Bord Failte may reasonably contend that these issues are matters of policy, for the Government and the Minister and not for them. This is true so far as it goes but it is a sad reflection on how organisations like Bord Failte have been emasculated when they fear to tell their political masters the truth. In the days of Tim O'Driscoll and, more recently, Martin Dully, Bord Failte would - politely, of course - have told government straightforwardly of the concerns they had. It was the least they could do to serve the interests of the industry they represented.
The remarkable growth in tourism in the past ten years is undeniable. It was achieved through largely benign international conditions, a substantial injection of EU funds, courageous and far-sighted investment by many in the industry and healthy competition between the transport companies serving Ireland. The prize is worth keeping. It will only be kept, however, if organisations like Bord Failte are given the freedom to manoeuvre with their partners in the industry and not produce a corporate strategy which has over it all the dead hand of a civil service memo.