This article is from page 16 of the 2007-11-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 16 JPG
US TRIPS from North America to Ireland show a drop for the second month in a row, sounding alarm bells for Shannon Airport in the aftermath of Open Skies.
Figures for September show a drop of 8,900 in the number of trips from North American to Ireland. The Au- gust figures showed a drop of 4,100 such trips.
Fine Gael TD, Pat Breen has warned that this fall-off in visitors from North America this September, compared to the same period the pre- vious year, Should sound alarm bells for Government and for Tourism Ire-
land.
“It is not sustainable to have a trend of decreasing trips from the impor- tant North American market,’ he said. *“These individual figures come in the context of slowing growth in the number of overseas visitors to Ireland. Comparing year to date fig- ures, numbers of overseas visitors erew by 2.8 per cent in 2004, by five per cent in 2005 and 11.2 per cent in 2006. But the level of growth has dropped back to 4.1 per cent so far in 2007. This is becoming a trend and one which we must arrest,” he said.
“CSO figures relate to the number of trips only and do not address other industry concerns about declining
length of stay and average spend, as well as the regional imbalance in vis- itor spread. Figures for the summer of 2008 indicate that transatlantic seat sales into Shannon from North America are projected at 355,226 another significant drop. Yet no Gov- ernment initiatives have been put in place and promises and guarantees given have been reneged upon.
“The previous Minister for Trans- port Martin Cullen told us that he had sought and received guarantees that Aer Lingus would deliver 400,000 passengers post Open Skies. Shan- non Airport will be the real loser if yet another Government promise is broken,” he said.