FEATURE
T
FINGAL TOURISM
in numbers AN AVERAGE OF
€500m
SPENT PER YEAR BY VISITORS
3,300 ROOMS IN REGISTERED ACCOMMODATION
800 BUSINESSES
ourism is an important indigenous sector of the Fingal local economy generating income and employment. Fingal’s tourism is heavily dependent on day trip visitors, particularly to coastal locations, heritage attractions or for the pursuit of a special interest, together with stay over visits, largely concentrated around Dublin Airport. Up to 800 businesses, of which 60 per cent are in food and beverage, provide accommodation and catering for visitors to Fingal. The industry is characterised by large numbers of SMEs and an estimated 3,000 full-time job equivalents are provided within the guest accommodation sector in Fingal, with a further 2,000 employed in the catering sector across the county. Visitors to the area support jobs in transport, retail, entertainment and other service sectors used by the local population. Visitor expenditure in Fingal from both staying tourists and day trippers sustains several hundred businesses and jobs in the hospitality and tourism sectors. Up to 500 million per year is spent by visitors to the county. This in turn supports an estimated one in four jobs in Fingal, or approximately 20,000 jobs. Unemployment, while declining in recent years, is currently running at 8.2 per cent and an expanding tourism industry has the potential to address this surplus labour pool in Fingal. The primary source markets for visits to Fingal are currently the Irish domestic market and Northern Ireland, with the majority of businesses reliant on these markets as the top source of demand. However, for about one in four businesses an overseas source market is the top producer of business, with Britain and North America tending to be more important than mainland Europe and other long haul markets.
A COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGY In May 2015, Fingal County Council officially launched its tourism strategy for the county with the objective of making Fingal the destination of choice in Ireland. The strategy, ‘Destination Fingal’, sets out a range of actions to improve and expand the visitor experience, to adopt new approaches to marketing Fingal, and to develop new partnerships within the tourism sector to realise the area’s potential. At a prestigious event in Swords Castle, which is a key element of the new strategy, the Mayor of Fingal Cllr David O’Connor spoke of his pride in seeing Swords Castle open to the public again after many years of closure. He thought it was particularly appropriate that Swords Castle was hosting the launch of the county’s new tourism strategy given that the castle has the potential to play a key role in attracting new visitors to Swords and to Fingal. Putting tourism in context in the county, the Mayor commented: “The strategy estimates that visitors to Fingal generate a spend of 500m a year and sustain one in four of our jobs in the county.” Meanwhile, Chief Executive of Fingal County Council Paul Reid said: “We will be working with all relevant agencies and with the tourism industry to promote Fingal, develop new and better marketing campaigns to attract new visitors to the county.” He also underlined that Fingal County Council will be taking a more ambitious and proactive approach to developing tourism within the county. “We’ll be addressing the key challenges set out in the strategy but also building on the strengths and assets that Fingal has in abundance.” For more details on Destination Fingal go to www.fingalcoco.ie/business-andeconomy/tourisminfingal
PROVIDE ACCOMMODATION & CATERING
3,000 FULL-TIME EQUIVALENT JOBS GENERATED BY ACCOMMODATION SECTOR
Pictured at the launch of the Fingal Tourism Strategy were Cllr Anthony Lavin, Ciaran Staunton, Fingal County Council; Tony Lambert, Chamber Chief Executive; Siobhán Kinsella, Chamber President; Paschal Donohoe, Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport; Paul Reid, Chief Executive, Fingal County Council
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