This article is from page 38 of the 2008-07-29 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 38 JPG
A SPEND of €5.5 million has been put up this year to tempt tourists into the Shannon region and the West of Ireland, before counting money spent by Failte Ireland on attracting visi- tors.
The Discover Ireland’s Wonderful West US campaign has been funded to the tune of €3 million while Shan- non Development have more than doubled their promotional budget, bringing their spend to ©2.5 million this year.
In a statement on the crisis in the tourism trade in the wake of the Heathrow slots going and the imple-
mentation of Open Skies, Shannon Development chairman, John Brassil said that it has to be recognised that this is a difficult tourism year.
“Recognising that, Shannon De- velopment, in conjunction with the tourism and travel industry, is imple- menting a number of actions to se- cure tourism business for the Shan- non Region.”
In the UK market he said, the de- velopment company is “working with Ryanair and the Irish Hotels Federa- tion on a €500,000 tourism adver- tising campaign. In addition to this we also undertook a €200,000 UK TV ad campaign in May this year in partnership with Shannon Airport
and Tourism Ireland which reached a UK audience of over 20 million. We are also working with the Irish Ho- tels Federation to put a major push on selling Shannon Region based short break holidays through the short breaks website www.shortbreaksire- land.ie, and we are working closely with our colleagues in Failte Ireland, Tourism Ireland and airlines to sup- port direct air access routes into the uss) 0F
He added that Shannon Develop- ment has signed agreements with a number of airlines and tourism op- erators to drive additional bed nights to the Shannon region.
“One of these campaigns has al-
ready resulted in 20,000 additional bednights from the US this year. In addition to this, Shannon Develop- ment is working with Tourism Ire- land in association with other tour- ism authorities along Ireland’s west coast on the ‘Discover Ireland’s Wonderful West’ campaign, a ©3 million marketing campaign in the US designed to boost business to the Shannon Airport catchment area post-Open Skies.
Among the initiatives already un- derway as part of this campaign are; US print, radio and online advertis- ing with carriers, tour operators and industry partners, special promo- tions,” said Brassil.