Why Ireland's so called 'Tourist Industry' is a joke

ardmacha

conorhal - superb post that encapsulates what I was struggling to say. I don't think the high end spenders from China & Russia will be flocking in to McDonalds on Grafton Street or Anne Summers on O'Connell Street. Japanese golf tourists would seem a more obvious market since most of them never get further than the 'driving range' at home.

I don't think we are looking at high rollers, as we cannot match Monte Carlo, although we may have a niche in equestrian activities. The likes of golf for Japanese is one option. However, there is a large middle class graduate market that are not plutocrats, but may wish to visit Ireland. Indians in particular often visit Britain and are potentially keen on an English speaking destination.

IMHO maninasia is correct, the sheer potential volume means that we could get a million of these people. That is not to say that we should not also attend to traditional markets, the two things are not exclusive. And there may be potential for Argentinians etc who do have Irish ancestors. As always attention to detail is required, it isn't one big thing only. It is fishing holidays for Europeans, quiet man holidays for Americans and different offerings for Asians.

dRNk SAnTA

Thank you for this thread! I completely agree with the OP.

I paid a visit to the cliffs of moher in Oct 09, I couldn't believe the state of the car park there. It was a dogs dinner with old traffic cones and litter strewn all over the place. It was an ugly mess in what is supposed to be a beautiful and pristine natural attraction! Like it was disgraceful.

Like someone else said, we don't have weather, shopping or great cities. People come here for our unspoilt country side and heritage. But we're doing everything we can to wreck the place between litter, one off housing, tatty road signage and all the rest. We've fantastic heritage but many of the sites have pathetic information and interpretations! There was a fantastic column in the irish times a few months ago from an irish historian working in the UK and he tore into the tourism and heritage quangos here.

The last thing is that i'm just after driving the entire way around Australia. i've done 15,000km on the roads. Every single town has a nice rest area with picnic tables, public toilets, some times even shower. I've used dozens across almost every state and they can be simple but they are always immaculately clean and stocked. they even provide free electric bbqs in most areas! Push a button and cook type thing! They are so much more sophisticated in both facilities and civil maturity than we are. For god sake when are we going to realise we're not the only country in the world with junkies and knackers and start providing proper public facilities like a civilised country. If there is antisocial behaviour can we not learn how to deal with it. Irish society has thrown in the towel. End of rant!

maninasia

A lot of the views here about Asians are outdated and borderline racist but it's nothing new in my experience. I am talking about the middle class not high rollers. It's also more diverse than Europe so it's not one size fits all. From travelling around Asia extensively I am aware that they are interested in exploring new places beyond the traditional tourist meccas of Paris/London/Rome. For example many are not aware but Swizterland is a big destination for Indians due to bollywood movies and the fact they have similar scenery in the Himalayas.

What carries a lot of influence are soap operas and celebrity endorsements, aswell as travel and cooking shows in addition to centres of educational excellence. Many European countries have trade offices which actively promote their culture to people who may not have been aware of it previously..I'm talking about the Dutch, Belgians, Italians, Czechs, Spanish, Swiss aswell as the UK, France, US, Germany etc. They do it by holding culinary courses, language courses, dance and music, literature and art courses, educational fairs.

The main problem has been getting tourist visas to people from developing countries. A lot go to the UK on study/tourism trips and would like to visit Ireland but do not have the appropriate visa so they end up abandoning their plans to visit Ireland. These are fairly simple things to analyse and rectify but it needs a co-ordinated approach. Unfortunately the Irish government has been 'rationalising' it's embassies and trade offices in Asia and has actually talked about closing some important trade offices when visa fees were scrapped. The idea was 'no fees' meant the offices weren't paying for themselves. Pathetic stuff.

It's a numbers game folks and it's also not A vs B , rather it is A & B. Maybe some of the Asians or South Americans or Arabs will fill the gaps in the tourist market and balance the tourist industry better. Don't be so negative!

avalon68

Well, whatever about attracting tourists to the country - how about catering to them while they are there. I was back from the states over christmas, and as per usual I dont carry large amounts of cash - I topped up my credit card before traveling. What did I find on arrival? My card doesn't have a chip and pin system (major american bank, so I assume this is not a unique situation!) - only a fraction of the shops I tried to use the card in would accept it! I mean in this day and age how can a visa card not be accepted. I had to resort to withdrawing cash from the atm and thus incurring fees. Seriously, this is something very basic which shouldnt pose a problem. I should note problems arose in towns outside cities mainly - I had no problems in Dublin city.

maninasia

European countries tend to use the chip and pin quite extensively and eventually American cards will all be chip and pin or the next generation of that.

stringed theory

conorhal wrote: »

Targeting Asian tiger tourists, wealthy Russians and Arab visitors is indeed a stupid and wasteful idea.

I saw quite a few hundred ordinary looking Chinese queuing up to see Ireland at the Expo two years ago in Shanghai. There may be a niche market there. Literature would be one "elitist" attraction. The Chester Beatty Library another one. Add whiskey, horse racing etc. And the Chinese wouldn't notice the rubbish.
But no tourist from China, Russia etc is going to spend weeks applying for an Irish visa. The only way would be to recognize Schengen or UK visas.

conorhal wrote: »

I noticed this trend in Egypt quite a bit, the Russians never went near any of the historic sites, .

That's because this crowd just want a beach holiday somewhere hot and can't get visas for anywhere else.

avalon68

maninasia wrote: »

European countries tend to use the chip and pin quite extensively and eventually American cards will all be chip and pin or the next generation of that.

But how many tourists will be inconvenienced in the mean time - it makes us seem like a backwards destination if we have to turn away credit cards like that. It's simply a matter of updating the machines they use. One store lost out on about 300 euro from me.....seems stupid when the retail sector is struggling

ardmacha

It's simply a matter of updating the machines they use.

It is more a case of you updating your credit card to 21st century technology or just paying cash and you paying the charges instead of pushing them on the merchant.

Formosa

avalon68 wrote: »

But how many tourists will be inconvenienced in the mean time - it makes us seem like a backwards destination if we have to turn away credit cards like that. It's simply a matter of updating the machines they use. One store lost out on about 300 euro from me.....seems stupid when the retail sector is struggling

It's the yanks that are behind the times on this one.

avalon68

ardmacha wrote: »

It is more a case of you updating your credit card to 21st century technology or just paying cash and you paying the charges instead of pushing them on the merchant.

Try leading with that on the tourist brochures. If the country wants a toursist industry it has to adapt to its customers.....otherwise they will go elsewhere. I havent had a problem with my card in any other country I have visited with it- uk, france, belgium, andorra, spain and germany.....just Ireland.

Judgement Day

Just been deleting some files from my archives when I came across this little gem and I thought it deserved one final airing.

The Little Elph project dates from a time when I was involved at the Cavan & Leitrim Railway at Dromod, Co.Leitrim, and when we were struggling to get Bord Failte to support our project. Despite our project being well underway in 1994, the powers that be gave as much creedence to this nonsense as to our bricks and mortar project. Where is Little Elph (and its UK consultants) now and for that matter where is the cash starved C&L project?


http://www.roscommonherald.com/news/mheycwgb/

Little Elph Model Railway
Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Elphin’s model railway project to get over €1.4m
By Mairead O’Shea

The LittleElph Model Railway Village project for Elphin has been awarded, in principle, a €1.4 million grant from the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism and is now on course to become a major tourist attraction.

The news was welcomed with great excitement in the Elphin area. The announcement brings an end to years of campaigning, lobbying and fundraising by the hard working local committee.

The Committee of Elphin 2000 Ltd. announced the news last week when they finally received approval in principle for the LittleElph Model Railway Village. A grant of €1,458,825 was allocated to the project.

Speaking to the Roscommon Herald this week, Carolin Callery of the Committee of Elphin 2000 said that the committee, with huge support from the people of Elphin, battled for over 10 years for this award winning project.

“Its unique design won an AIB New Business Award which resulted in a slot on the Late Late Enterprise show a number of years back. The news was received with great jubilation in Elphin, as word filtered through that the project had received approval. Never before has an amount of money like this has been put into our town for major capital project and it is long overdue,” said Ms Callery.

Ms Callery explained that the Model Railway Village would be built on a scale of 1-12 and the theme part would feature key historical events from areas throughout County Roscommon.

“The model village will for example include sections on Arigna Coal Mine, Roscommon Jail House, Rockingham House on the night of the fire, Rathcroghan etc which are all key historical events of interest in various areas of the county,” said Ms Callery.

The project will be built on a six acre site across from the windmill in Elphin with the theme park taking over four acres and a visitors building and administration area located on the remaining two acres. The site was donated by Roscommon County Council.

It is hoped to start the project in the coming months with a completion date scheduled for 2007. When up and running the Little Elph project will employ between 7-10 part time and full time staff with that number increasing depending on visitor numbers

323

Formosa wrote: »

It's the yanks that are behind the times on this one.

Not totally true, BOI don't have chip & pin on their cards issued from their UK branches.

Tend to side with Avalon 68 though "If the country wants a toursist industry it has to adapt to its customers.....otherwise they will go elsewhere"

But then, lets be honest, customer service is an alien concept to much, I do not say all, of the tourist industry in Ireland. A fact no one wants to admit to.

Solair

Ireland's tourism product could do with a lot of work, if we are serious about making it one of the mainstays of rebuilding parts of the economy (particularly remote areas).

However, tourism products across Europe can be bad. I recently stayed in a very touristy part of the Southwest of France and seriously, it was very dull and the hotel was dire.

I have never stayed in a hotel in Ireland where I was worried that I might be electrocuted. There was mould growing on the curtains and the only source of heat was a plug-in convector heater as the heating had broken down!! You had to plug the earthed plug into an adaptor and into a non-earthed 1950s socket.

The tv was smaller than a netbook screen.

The food in cafés was, for the most part, over priced, totally unimaginative and universally awful and served with absolute lack of friendliness. Croque Monsieur (cheese and ham toastie sandwich) reheated in the microwave was standard fare for about €5 ! I can honestly say a café would be embarrassed to serve it here!

Coffee was awful ... Need I go on?

That being said, I have had wonderful holidays in France too. It's very much pot luck, much like Ireland or anywhere else.

As for toilets, mentioned above. If you think Irish toilets are bad, try Paris cafes!

I think Ireland needs to look at seriously upping its game though. it's a remote place, with bad weather. We need to be offering something amazing or it's immediately lacking something.

I have to say though, areas like West Cork do high-end tourism EXTREMELY well.
Some less well frequented parts of Ireland, need seriously to rethink their tourism products though and there are definitely too many clapped out attractions that belong in a Father Ted sketch in many areas.

In Cork City, for example, Shandon is a very interesting attraction direly lacking in investment. It could really be a much bigger deal than it is.

Then they have this weird "butter museum" opposite which looks like someone's school project or something. Really amateurish and very boring.

Those kinds of things need to be massively upgraded and made relevant.

mistermouse

You'll find that in most tourist areas poor planning resulted in the abolisition of scenery. The planners are well protected in the CPA and where councillors used influence they will get a pension and a street or park named after them

Now to top it off we want to ruin scenery with wind farms to please a green lobby while at the same time trying to attract people from the states and China, two nations that have a lot to answer for from the green prospective

Sea and offshore power perhaps, but Ireland's continuance to look good to Europe started way before we saddled ourselves with European bank debts. We sold our culture, scenery and identity out years ago - FACT, well before we gave our economic sovereignty away.

In any town its lights out, the CPA and Political system have finished off the country. I'm actually waiting just to see what happens when its their turn to suffer, they never will like anyone else, but they are already taking even criticism badly so maybe its a case of, the higher they are the harder the fall... hope so.

Solair

To be perfectly honest, windfarms are the absolute least of our concerns in rural areas with regard to scenery protection.

The worst offenders are ugly buildings put in totally inappropriate areas. There are areas of places like Western Donegal which are absolutely wrecked with little ugly, empty 'holiday homes'.

Also, on-going industrial peat-cutting and the legacy of all the Bord na Mona cutting is absolutely dire. The whole unique quirky bogland areas are destroyed.

That being said, Irish landscape is still largely untouched in most areas compared to most of continental Europe.

Unfortunately, our main tourism competitors however, tend to be areas that have really serious focus on environmental issues and heritage - primarily the UK, where the national trust does a phenomenal job. But, we are also pitched against Scandinavia.

I think we need to set our standards much higher than most of Europe to preserve the lush, green, picturesque landscape as we do not have the advantage of sunny weather to 'hide' things.

French countryside is often really badly damaged with all sorts of ugly junk and industrial farming, but you tend to gloss over it because the weather's nice.
Likewise, I find a lot of continental modern built-environments are hideous i.e. ugly, featureless apartment blocks. We have plenty of featureless suburban housing sprawls, but I still think they're less depressing than much of the continental countries' post WWII new build.

We need to set our tourism bar VERY high though and should be at the very least achieving the same levels of standards as the best that Scotland and England have on offer.

I also think we need to try and co-market with Scotland and England as many tourists, particularly those traveling from far afield tend to do the two islands as a single trip.

Even co-marketing with areas of France wouldn't be a bad idea if they're reachable by air / ferry.

I think the fundamental problem in Ireland though is an over-abundance of powerless local authorities and quangos.

We need to totally simplify the whole local authority system down to about 8 councils representing populations of about 500,000 people.

This would probably mean the Dublin Metropolitan area having two authorities, Cork City/County having one and the rest of the country being split across perhaps 5 or 6 regional authorities. The old historical county structure could be retained for sports/cultural reasons but for administration it's unnecessary and totally overkill.

Each authority would have to have serious powers and executive mayor and take responsibility for tourism, public transport, maybe education and some other serious issues. There's no point in having these useless local talking shops.

Meanwhile, national Government would be freed up to do national things.

On the purely tourism side, I would think that the best thing we could do is slim down the tourism bureaucracy too.

Failte Ireland - national branding / international marketing only + setting basic standards.

Regional tourism authorities under control of the exec. regional councils would to the rest.

Some equivalent of the National Trust, with similar powers, to protect heritage sites could be setup too, but with minimal bureaucracy.

The rest - scrapped.

Anyway - sorry for the long post, but there are just so many issues

Also, on the environmental side of things, farmers need to be tackled.
Things like slurry spreading are just totally unacceptable in this day and age.
Slurry should be collected by tanker, processed as sewage in a special facility and clean, non-smelly, non-environmentally toxic fertilisers produced from it and used in a controlled way. I mean, with the right management, slurry is actually an farm PRODUCT that could be sold and commercially processed. It's not necessarily just a waste that should be spread.

We cannot really have this situation where farmers seem to think it's fine to destroy rivers/lakes and absolutely stink-up the countryside to the point that it would nearly make your stomach turn. It's very environmentally damaging and bad for tourism too.

Things like illegal dumping etc and major visual ugliness of sites needs to be tackled too.

Anyway ... lots of issues!

But, I think they will only ever be addressed through massive and radical reform of local Government. It's actually what causes almost all of Ireland's practical day-to-day problems.

mikemac1

The Brits couldn't merge North and South Tipp and no Irish government would dare to do it either

Solair

mikemac1 wrote: »

The Brits couldn't merge North and South Tipp and no Irish government would dare to do it either

That's exactly the kind of mentality that just means that we go on with endless crappy, useless bureaucracy.

The counties would still exist for cultural things like GAA etc. But, like the traditional provinces, they would have no administrative function.

The fact that Munster has no administrative role whatsoever does not undermine the identity or Munster Rugby!

mikemac1

I think you missed my smilie

Solair wrote: »

We cannot really have this situation where farmers seem to think it's fine to destroy rivers/lakes and absolutely stink-up the countryside

Some farmers, that reads like they are all at it


Edit, a mod will slap me down for going off topic so I have to add to the thread

CERT are a training organization, kind of like FÁS only they are excellent
Courses for bar staff, service staff, chefs and more, everything for the sector and they had a fantastic training center in Roxboro, Limerick.
The goal of course is to have professional Irish staff working in the sector. Tourists come to Ireland, they want to meet Irish people.

I did a course with them in Limerick and it was superb and I got a job out of it at the end. A real job, not these internship schemes going around these days.
And others on the course were long term unemployed so it helps their confidence.

Where is this organization gone? I googled, can't find it then went to Fáilte Ireland and they've taken it over but have little info at all

I hope it does not end up like FÁS

getz

most are missing the point over 6 million tourists visit ireland each year,4 million are brits who for many reasons,like family conections,ancestry ,or even because they can holiday with their dog,they are the ones who bring over the car and travel around the country,the other two or three million fly over spend most of their holiday in the likes of dublin,cork ect and only see the art galleries and museums,maybe a tour bus to woodbridge not stopping in any village or spending money, its all paid for on the all in package holiday,now the irish tourist board is looking towards the chinese market,now why would a chinese tourist [not that many about] come over to ireland, i doubt there are many with any irish connection about

jmayo

conorhal wrote: »

When it comes to seeing the country and experiencing it's people you have to give it to the Brits, French, Germans and Americans

???
I hope to God you don't mean that some of those nationalities do it right and we don't kind of thing.
I have to agree with Solair's previous post where he commented about France.
After spending a few weeks there last year I have to say I have come to agree with the views most Brits have about the people.
A lot of the people who work in restaurants, bars, etc are the most unfriendly, unaccommodating, up their own holes bunch I have ever come across.
The way I have seen English speaking people been treated was attrocious and what made it all the worst was it was in places like Normandy where the locals would be speaking German, but for probably the sacrifices of the ancestors of these visitors.

conorhal wrote: »

and I think we are steadily alienating these markets. If you look at what many tourists cite as 'the best experience of their holiday' it's the natural beauty of the country (which we have spent 10yrs concreting over), followed closely the friendliness of the people, who have been replaced by Poles, Latvians and Lithuanians in our hotels and service industries. This has been a huge mistake.

On a recent flying visit he was actually shocked at how few Irish people he encountered during his stay in Dublin.

IMHO there is a lot of bullsh** there.

A lot of the snarly unhelpful, ungratious, lacking in manners people you found in our service industry over the last 10 odd years are good old fashioned paddies not Poles, Latvians, Chinese, Indian or anyone else.
We could learn a lot from the Americans with regard to customer service.

Non Irish nationalities may not be good at conversing with tourists because English is not their native tongue, but what the fook is the excuse of the Irish for the often frosty sharp attitude they adopt.

If you want to look up some of the comments, often made by other Irish people, that litter Tripadvisor to really see how our service industry acts.

During our boom some Irish thought they were too good to work in a shop, a restuarant, a hotel, etc and they shure as hell let the customers know it.
The distain shown to customers by Irish staff was often bloody galling, where the staff could easily have rivalled the worst of the French prima donnas I have had the misfortune to come across.

And I am not saying all Irish staff are badly behaved and unfriendly.
Some are the best in the world and put to shame those from other countries.
But there is no excuse for the downright rude behaviour adopted by some.

A big reason British tourists got peed off with the place was the growing unfriendliness of the place and downright rip off costs that they faced.
They could get better value in the likes of Scotland for much the same weather.

Solair

It shouldn't matter who is behind the counter. Failure to deal with customers in an appropriate way means there is bad management and no staff training.

there is a bit of lack of realistic view of the world from some US tourists though. I've heard complaints about the fact that the country is too much like America, that it's multicultural etc. They expect a theme park with peasants driving around on horses and thatched cottages everywhere.

One guy I was talking to was annoyed that people had cellphones and didn't dress in traditional kilts more!

No country is like that! It wouldn't function!

maninasia

getz wrote: »

most are missing the point over 6 million tourists visit ireland each year,4 million are brits who for many reasons,like family conections,ancestry ,or even because they can holiday with their dog,they are the ones who bring over the car and travel around the country,the other two or three million fly over spend most of their holiday in the likes of dublin,cork ect and only see the art galleries and museums,maybe a tour bus to woodbridge not stopping in any village or spending money, its all paid for on the all in package holiday,now the irish tourist board is looking towards the chinese market,now why would a chinese tourist [not that many about] come over to ireland, i doubt there are many with any irish connection about

Let me break it down for you REAL simple. Imagine 100 million middle class Chinese who can take a foreign holiday every year. Someday soon that may happen. Now imagine just 1% comes to Ireland, that's one in a hundred like. Everybody else either hates Ireland or wants to go somewhere else this year or has never heard of Ireland. But there's still 1% that would really like to visit Ireland every year. That's 1 million extra tourists. Did you learn maths in school?
That's 1 MILLION extra tourists that you NEVER had before. EXTRA.

Paddywhackery can only get you so far.

MadsL

Solair wrote: »

One guy I was talking to was annoyed that people had cellphones and didn't dress in traditional kilts more!

American humour, occasionally subtle - I think you got played...

section4

Solair wrote: »

It shouldn't matter who is behind the counter. Failure to deal with customers in an appropriate way means there is bad management and no staff training.

there is a bit of lack of realistic view of the world from some US tourists though. I've heard complaints about the fact that the country is too much like America, that it's multicultural etc. They expect a theme park with peasants driving around on horses and thatched cottages everywhere.

One guy I was talking to was annoyed that people had cellphones and didn't dress in traditional kilts more!

No country is like that! It wouldn't function!

but it does matter who is behind the bar, if your coming for the irish experience, I know people who came here some 7 years ago and would not go to the city centre and when i asked why not they said because they wanted to meet irish people and there were very few there, and these people were regular visitors. If i go to italy i want italian people serving me speaking italian and so on.

jbkenn

getz wrote: »

,now why would a chinese tourist [not that many about] come over to ireland, i doubt there are many with any irish connection about

Maybe not, but there are 132,000 millionaires in Shanghai alone, and, in 2010 Chinese tourists spent a reported $890 million in France, I doubt too many of them had any connection with France either.

ednwireland

Solair wrote: »

To be perfectly honest, windfarms are the absolute least of our concerns in rural areas with regard to scenery protection.

heard enough germans complain that donegal hills have been ruined with windfarms, ironic really

parsi

Solair wrote: »

I think the fundamental problem in Ireland though is an over-abundance of powerless local authorities and quangos.

We need to totally simplify the whole local authority system down to about 8 councils representing populations of about 500,000 people.

This would probably mean the Dublin Metropolitan area having two authorities, Cork City/County having one and the rest of the country being split across perhaps 5 or 6 regional authorities. The old historical county structure could be retained for sports/cultural reasons but for administration it's unnecessary and totally overkill.

Each authority would have to have serious powers and executive mayor and take responsibility for tourism, public transport, maybe education and some other serious issues. There's no point in having these useless local talking shops.

Interesting views .

In France the smallest unit of local government seems to be the commune/ village. These are small spots but from a tourism point of view they seem to work quite well. They can impose a tourist tax and they can use that revenue for their own projects . They also get their own direct funds as well and have the ability to generate their own revenue eg concession stands on promenades.

One thing about paying the tourist tax is that as a tourist you can see the money being ploughed in to the local area - better streetscapes, better tourist infrastructure.

Over here a tourist tax would go into the County Council's coffers so there would be a disconnect between the payment and the benefit which is probably why tourism interests moan about it.

screamer

We could learn a lot from the Americans with regard to customer service

what to be slow, disinterested and fake? I think we've already learned all we can!

n900guy

getz wrote: »

now why would a chinese tourist [not that many about] come over to ireland, i doubt there are many with any irish connection about

Believe it or not, there is a large amount of people that travel to faraway places without needing to have a connection with it - be it a GAA jersey, spending holidays in a pub drinking Guinness or having 2 weeks with your neighbours neuighbours.

Quite a lot of people travel to places that they might like or find interesting, not necessarily that they are related to everyone in the village.

Head The Wall

screamer wrote: »

what to be slow, disinterested and fake? I think we've already learned all we can!

The manners and service in USA is miles ahead of what I have experienced in Ireland. Have you lived elsewhere to do a valid comparison?

Generally the service I have encountered in Ireland is slow, disinterested, ignorant and resentful.