This article is from page 22 of the 2008-07-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 22 JPG
THE amount of summer chartered flights flying into Dublin Airport has passed out those flying into Shannon Airport for the first time ever.
That was the startling revelation at last nights meeting of Clare County Council where calls were made for the local authority to redouble it’s efforts to market the county to tour- ists abroad, especially to the United NF tee
Commenting on a motion put for-
ward by Cllr Pascal Fitzgerald (Lab), Cllr Patricia McCarthy (Ind) blamed the loss of the Aer Lingus’ Heathrow slots in Shannon as one of the chief reasons for the decline in tourism nga t Kone
“The Clare Tourist forum is work- ing very hard but we have to recog- nice that there were fierce impedi- ments put in the way of the Clare tourist forum, not least of which is the loss of a connection,’ said Cllr McCarthy.
“The current system with flights
coming into Ireland is favouring Dublin and the greater Dublin area and not Shannon. The number of chartered flights going into Dub- lin has passed out those going into Shannon for the first time ever. This is very bad news for the tourism pro- duce in Shannon.”
The council also heard that a number of hotels in the county were working three-day weeks as a result of the widspread downturn in tourist numbers.
“I’d like to see more initiative used
in promoting the county. There are no incentives or advertisements to bring people in. We are looking at putting out a brochure but we re- ally should have done that last year. There are no enticement for people to come into the county this year,’ said Cllr Fitzgerald.
“Some hotels are now down to a three day week to get people in. The Americans are not coming. Especial- ly in to the Shannon slots.”
According to Fianna Fail councilor Pat McMahon, the tourism industry
is suffering not just in Clare but also throughout Europe.
“The situation is getting worse by the month. You hear of hotels going into receivership and down to a four and three day week – the whole in- dustry is in serious trouble,” he said.
“It’s not just in Ireland. People are scared to go abroad and move be- cause of the state of the global econ- omy. It should be up to us to take the initiative and put forward a new programme for bringing tourism into OE Tome