RECEPTION FOR PARTICIPANTS IN THE “RESILIENCE AND REVITALISATION: TOURISM IRELAND INNOVATION SUMMIT”
RECEPTION FOR IRISH AND OVERSEAS PARTICIPANTS IN THE “RESILIENCE AND REVITALISATION: TOURISM IRELAND INNOVATION SUMMIT”
Dia dhíbh a chairde, you are the experts in Ireland’s “cead mile failte” but let me return the compliment and offer you a céad míle fáilte, one hundred thousand welcomes to Áras an Uachtaráin.
That welcome is at the core of our tourism industry. Last week in Shanghai I attended the launch of a book on Ireland by a Chinese travel writer who said that in all her twenty years of visiting widely in Europe, Irish people were the friendliest and most welcoming. Her testimony is infinitely more valuable than any claims we might make about ourselves but since tourism is a very personal service to each and every single tourist we need your encouragement, vigilance, standard-setting and expertise to ensure that we create the best tourist experience we possibly can.
I know that it is a passion about our tourist industry that brought you to today’s Summit and brought you from far and near. I thank you all for investing your time and wisdom as we plan the future of tourism to this island. You know better than most just how vital tourism is to our economy. It is a crucial and pervasive indigenous industry, dominated by small - and medium-sized enterprises. It is a significant employer in towns, cities, villages and rural communities the length and breadth of the island of Ireland and importantly it is more often than not the entrepreneurial backbone of local community life with huge loyalty to locality. Tourism also has a powerful global reach for it strongly influences international perceptions of the island so, while the financial pages of the international press may have been hard to read at times lately, the feature pages by contrast tell a positive story of the Irish tourist experience and they have helped maintain vital goodwill towards our island. In a very competitive global tourist market reputation is everything and we are indebted to Tourism Ireland for ensuring that the image of Ireland abroad is so good.
Our tourism sector generates very substantial earnings and is an area earmarked to deliver even more in the future as was highlighted at the Global Irish Economic Forum last September. It is however a very demanding sector instantly vulnerable to both man-made and natural crises and you have had plenty of both to contend with in recent years.
It demands a capacity for flexibility and adaptability few other sectors are as immediately exposed to. We only have to think of the way in which the internet has dramatically changed the way holidays are planned, researched, booked, marketed and sold.
Nimble does not even come close to describing the acrobatics required to survive in the tourism sector but your legendary resourcefulness and resilience are likely to be required for some time to come. The global economic downturn has taken money out of people’s pockets and made for a climate of reluctance to spend. The holiday market has been particularly hit but against that background your leadership is essential. Tourism has been an outstanding Irish success story for many years. It was never an easy success to accomplish and today we rely more than ever on you to maintain and grow our share in the global market.
Which brings me back to the céad míle fáilte, for our ability to continue to deliver a personally enriching and good value visitor experience is absolutely essential. It is the all-important complement to the abundance of beauty nature has given us, as well as the unique and fascinating cultural heritage and easily accessed resources and first-class facilities catering to the widest variety of tastes. We have any amount of wonderful things to offer the tourist and a great story to tell but many other countries are clamouring for the attention of the tourist all over the world which is why today’s event at Farmleigh was so important. We need your creativity and innovative ideas to make sure that the rest of the world hears of Ireland as the outstanding tourist destination we know it is. We also need you to reinforce to every single person in the industry the seminal importance of that fáilte, a large part of which is to be found in well-trained, efficient and friendly staff, good quality services and goods, good value and good humour.
I warmly thank you on behalf of the many families and businesses that depend on your work and creativity and the many millions of people whose experience of being a tourist in Ireland you have invested so much in. I am sure that with your help we can look forward to a tourism industry that is dynamic and successful come what may, in the years ahead and wish you a most enjoyable evening.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.