This article is from page 15 of the 2012-07-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
TOURISTS have been sucked out of North Clare over the last two weeks with the Volvo Ocean Race creating a “vortex” for holiday makers, according to one leading Clare hotelier.
While hundreds of thousands of tourists flocked north to take in the spectacle in Galway, Clare tourism operators were left kicking their heels for two successive weekend and the expected tourists failed to show up.
According to Lahinch hotelier and president of the Irish Hotel Federation, Michael Vaughan, the Volvo Ocean Race was good news for Galway, but very bad news for Clare.
“The year had started okay and May wasn’t so bad but things were very bad in Clare, and North Clare in particular over the last few weeks. The Volvo Ocean Race succeeded in hovering up all the tourists that were coming out west in recent weeks. It was like a vortex for tourists,” he said.
“It was the same when it happened two years ago – it created a very quiet period for tourists in Clare.”
This news comes just weeks after early season positive numbers from the Cliffs of Moher Visitors Experience were overturned by a very poor opening to June. This sudden downturn in the numbers visiting the cliffs was put town to a concentration of both Irish and European tourists travelling to Poland and the Ukraine because of Euro 2012.
This trend has sparked fears that the expected boost to tourism number predicted to take place during the London 2012 Olympics – may not materialise later this year.