New airport board to boost tourism

THE faltering tourism industry in the Mid-West should get much-needed additional support through greater Shannon Airport Authority board representation.

The region’s tourism sector has been given increased influence on the Shannon Airport Authority through the new ministerial appointments to the board. Tourism interests will also be keeping a sharp eye on the small print of the Finance Bill, where they hope that new promotional finance designated specifically for Shannon Airport will be included when the finer points of Wednesday’s Budget are fleshed out.
The intensified focus on rebuilding Shannon Airport as the key feeder of Shannon Region tourism has been pressed for in concerted lobbying by the Irish Hotels Federation. While an estimated 50% of overseas visitors to the region are delivered through the airport, the region’s share of overseas tourism has been on the slide through most of the decade, with the American element particularly hit by open skies deregulation. Failure to keep pace with tourism growth in other regions is reflected in the admission in the past week by Shannon Airport director, Martin Moroney, that seven in every 10 passengers flying with Ryanair have been Irish originating and are predominantly Irish or Polish people.
Even home holiday growth has not delivered to the Shannon Region on the same scale of increase elsewhere in the country, with the Shannon Region slumping to the bottom of the growth table in 2008, according to latest research findings from the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation.
The strong Irish Hotels Federation in the Shannon Region has been pushing for special treatment and a special funding package for Shannon Airport to boost the airport and tourism in the western seaboard, following the drifting away of the higher-spending American tourists since the introduction of open skies.
Tourism interests are also hopeful that calls on the Government to assign the marketing budget to Shannon will be delivered. The €3 million annual marketing allocation is already in place, so it is not an additional cost to Government.
Originally just a part of the €52m promotion and development programme that leaders and planners of the region sought to counter the open skies setback to Shannon, which has seen US passenger numbers drop by 22% in the first 10 months of this year, hoteliers in particular do not believe that the promotion budget is actually delivering for Shannon Airport. Although it was branded as a “Visit the Wonderful West” promotion, “the impression remains that the €3m budget was simply used to top up the promotional budget of Tourism Ireland in the United States,” a leading hotelier commented.
The hotels federation has been pressing for the €3m funding to be devoted specifically to Shannon Airport and particularly to the depleted marketing unit within the Shannon Airport Authority where the loss of two senior promotion executives, which halved the marketing team, has not been remedied.
The lobbying campaign by the hotels organisation has won support from highly influential quarters. The Mid-West Task Force report of July called for funding for new route development, which is now of top priority for the airport, due to the impending withdrawal of 70% of Ryanair services from the end of March 2010. The group’s planning strategists also want funding to be directed towards making the most of the US pre-inspection Customs and Border Protection station that opened this year at Shannon.
The Mid-West tourism sector is aiming to have a say in how promotional budgets are directed and spent through increased representation on the Shannon Airport Authority board, which was revealed this week.
The line-up includes: chairman, Brian O’Connell, developer of the Westpark joint venture at Shannon Free Zone; Dromoland Castle managing director, Mark Nolan; former Irish Hotels Federation president, Mary Fitzgerald of the Woodlands Hotel in Adare; Shannon Development chief executive, Dr Vincent Cunnane and Olivia Loughnane, manager of the Task Force, who served on the inaugural airport authority.
The other appointees are Ray Gray, finance director at the Dublin Airport Authority and Patrick Blaney, who served on the previous board.
The appointment of the trade unions’ worker-directors remains to be sorted out as the row over the minister’s proposal to cut representation from four to two continues.