Call for national tourism centre

A leading Clare hotelier has called for a national centre for tourism policy and studies to be set up in the Mid-West after a report this week revealed the demand for bed nights here fell by 37% between 1999 and 2010.

Michael Vaughan, president of the Shannon branch of the Irish Hotels Federation and proprietor of Vaughan Lodge Hotel, Lahinch, was speaking after the launch of the New Directions for Tourism in the West report from the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation (ITIC).
According to the report, approximately 9.8 million bednights were spent on the west coast by overseas holidaymakers in 2010. This compares with 15.1 million in 1999, a 37% fall-off in demand.
Last year, just over half of all nights spent by holiday visitors to Ireland were spent along the west coast, down from a situation 10 years ago when two out of three bednights were spent west of the Shannon. In the Mid-West, the drop was even more severe, with the number of bednights spent here going from 3,328,000 to 1,584,000 during the past decade.
“Our region suffered an underperformance of almost 52% in the demand for the past 10 to 12 years.
“That is a huge indictment of the lack of policy in relation to the Shannon Region. What it shows most clearly is there was no forward planning for the ending of open skies,” Mr Vaughan commented.
The Mid-West’s share of British holiday-makers dropped from 18% to 8% between 1999 and 2010 mainland Europe numbers went down from 38% to 19% and the region’s share of North American visitors dropped from 49% to 34%.
According to the report, “The region has predictably lost a share of North American visitors in post open skies era, with about one in every three North Americans now spending at least one night in the region, compared to one in every two a decade ago.
“The region attracts a 12% share of North American holiday nights. The region’s share of British and European holiday visits and bednights has approximately halved, with the exception of a less steep loss of European holiday bednights.”
“I would be looking for us to establish a national centre for tourism policy and studies based in the University of Limerick because what is clear as day from this report is that we have had no solid research on the trends and performance in tourism in the west for many, many years and our studies have been retrospective but unable to progress clear pathways for the future,” Mr Vaughan added.
The North Clare hotelier also called for co-ordination between small tourism agencies and tourism enterprises along the western seaboard and for tourist attractions to invest in technological advances “in line with the demands of a more modern tourist”.
Asked how the number of overseas visitors to the Mid-West could have declined at an average rate of 6% per year since 1999, Mr Vaughan said, “Shannon Development has some issues to deal with in relation to the performance of the Mid-West during that period.” 
Describing the ITIC report as “one of the most important tourist reports for the region in the last decade”, Mr Vaughan said “it has only opened up the door and we need to study the details forensically to get anywhere”.