Clare Tourism Stakeholders Expecting To Meet Accommodation Challenges For Upcoming Golf Tournaments

0:00So Chair of the Claire Tours and Advisory Forum, Sean Lally, Sean, you're having the welcome to Claire Tours and together a 20-26 event here at the International Molland. It's a God-focus networking event. Look, we don't even need to remind people we've got the Walker Cup, we have the M Gen Irish Open, and the next year we have the Ryder Cup coming as well. Look, an abundance of opportunities for Claire and the waiter region, but how can we capitalize on them? I think it's huge, and that's probably why we're here this evening. But to prepare to Claire in the past, when you look at the high-profile events like the two Flas, the presidential visits, you know, every other Irish Open in a number of years back, you know, all Ireland Championship welcome home parties are big championship games, and then as I think we really, you know, get together, we work very well together. There's a great atmosphere, a great pose around, and it's a great event. And you see the Irish Open coming back to Claire so soon after such a successful event in the hinge, I think is kudos to that. And that was one of the main reasons why the chose Trump to invade far of the Irish Open. So it's very exciting. I'm really looking forward to hearing some of the experts on the golf side of it here.

1:03I think that's a massive, massive opportunity. And we'll see it like the Shannon Airport pushing in a new car, so to cater for this business, that's going to be there forever more, it's not just for the Ryder Cup. So it's a proper fashion, the west of Ireland, as a serious golfing venue. And like we all know, the golfing tours are very, very high-spinned people. And I think it's a great opportunity to certainly pinch me moment. I have that many events so close together in the Midwest here, and countercare can only reap huge benefits out of it. And yeah, that's the point that's not often raised. And that's huge when you think about the pinch that could have for Shannon Airport down the line, because absolutely, you have to explore further route to it that, but let's pull Sean something simpler. It's going to be a great period for, I suppose hotel owners, like you said, you should be sure to put bookings, you probably be worried if you wouldn't be joined those times. But like you said, during the flat, we want to have enough conhumidation available, we'll have to turn to climate excites, we'll have to turn to alternatives, and you really have to wonder how are we going to do that? Well, I think all those people seem to find a bet.

2:04So whether it's a friend or seeing a relation or something like that, you know, they will find a place, you know, this park and ride, there's also some innovative ways to find a accommodation. Yes, there was a lot of accommodation taken out of maybe the clear market over the last years, with the international crisis, but a lot of that has actually come back and come back into the system. And I believe between now and the rider cup in particular, you'll see a lot more coming back into the system. It's happening as we speak, you know, so there are more rooms coming back and that will help us. No matter how many bedrooms you have locally for likes of a rider cup, you're probably still wouldn't have enough, because you're not a room or you're not a New York where it was the last posting, you know, so that will always be a little bit of a challenge, you know. You know, there will be an hour and a half to our radius in terms of a people providing accommodation. I hear a lot of people are taking a week off and going on holidays to Spain and hoping to pay for the holiday out at the rental accommodation. So there will be additional beds coming into the market, into the market for such a huge worldwide event that I believe is the hardest sporting organization in the sporting event

3:09in the world, which is here in our doorstep, and we're very, very lucky and we need to really capitalise this, and that's why we have events like this evening. Own curry, proud relation of Claire and a lesser known travel cars fun with the travel extra that I eat, not that that's very much naturally, very much better known for your travel endeavors but own. You're speaking here at the latest Claire tours and networking event that's all about the gone thing opportunities that are coming up in 2026 and 2027, but one thing you had your finger on the pulse for it is that quite sadly the conflict going on the Middle East at the moment is tragic as it is and as small as this may seem in comparison, it is likely to affect our tourism operations later this year. Yeah, it's a long way away until it affects aviation and that's what it has done this week. And first of all, let's look east. All of those Australians, 150,000 Australians, come to Ireland each year. Their main connection are through those three Middle Eastern hubs. If they're taken out of the scene, there are other options but they get more expensive, they get more crowded, the whole, you're fighting for seats to Heathrow, places like that

4:12rather than the one stop option. In the other direction though, it's much more significant, 1.5 million come from North America, including Canada, to Ireland every year. Goodly proportion of those come to Claire. If they start getting jumpy, if they start saying, oh, the conflict is going on somewhere near Ireland, then the cancellation start coming in, it hasn't happened yet, but people are getting inquiries that aren't being seen through, the inbound tour operators are hearing things, you know, everybody just backing off a little bit. The conflict could all be resolved fairly quickly, but at the moment it doesn't look like going that way. We've got to work out a plan how to reassure our biggest market, America, that Ireland and County Claire are safe and they're very far away from conflict, which they are. Part of that will be achieved already with the Gulf Tournaments, not just the Irish Open, but the Walker Cup coming in the previous week in September. That's pretty much the crown jewels, a far of the true golfers in America.

5:15They'll be looking at those pictures and saying, what a beautiful coast. Other point I made is a lot of our Tournaments in Ireland are Parkland courses, Mount Judy's, Kate's love, even a dare. If we hold those tournaments in links courses, Scotland is our rival. We don't have the same sort of competition for links courses as we do for Parkland courses. That's the stuff to showcase and that's what's going to be done this September from Ireland and especially from the County of my ancestor, County Claire. When you were mentioned as well, it's something we always love to hear about growth at Shannon Airport. I mean, we love to try and make any argument we can to increase root offer in several. This is very much a year where Claire is going to be in the shop window. This is kind of a situation of if we don't ensure that we get a lot of repeat visitors from people that we hopefully impress at the Mgen Irish Open and the Walker Cup that really we won't ever do. A couple of trends. One of the interesting trends in Shannon is very beholden to a short seasonal market.

6:17Shannon's entire season is from Transatlantic Point of View is about ten weeks, obviously the outbound connectivity with Europe is quite a little bit different and they could be important as well. But what I've seen is extendancies and the hoteliers and Claire are noticing September was a big month, October, November, it's happening as well, Americans coming in. Part of this is the level of connectivity, technology is good for Shannon. The A321 and XLR which Erlingus are taking six off. It's effectively a short-haul aircraft, it's single-eyed, it doesn't have the two hours at the 3.30 have and that is only 180 seats, very hard to see, fill 280 seats to Shannon, easier to sell 180 seats. I can see Shannon working away in that niche, it's never going to be the largest airport on the island or even, you know, it's about 4% of the overall input into the island but it's not going to grow vastly beyond that but it's going to really, really work as a strong

7:19regional connection with the right technology and with the right connectivity to the right places in North America. People do not like flying through a big hub, they don't like flying to Dublin and driving two and a half hours to get here, it's very, very important that Shannon be still part of our tourism offering but it's not going to happen without a lot of help and probably those major routes will probably need to be subsidised. If we are to have a regional aviation policy, it means effectively taking out the, what used to be the checkbook but is probably now the revolute account and making sure that the regional airports aren't struggling to pay for things and to make sure that the airlines are given some sort of bonus or jones, are incentive to fly to places like Shannon with the make lessen. So Chair of Claire's Tourism Strategic Policy Committee, Shantalzi, we're having a meeting here today to discuss the opportunities of tourism in Claire and the later region of

8:20the Ryder Club and Duneveg Irish Open to come later this autumn as well. Quite a size we crowd here and I suppose what are your hopes for how we can capitalise on this sustainable way? Yeah, Claire, I'm sure everyone knows that the importance of tourism to every corner of Claire and the economy of Claire so I suppose this evening is an opportunity at the beginning of the season I suppose for operators, industry people and the tourism and marketing side of the house from Claire County Council, from some of the larger accommodation providers to the golf courses, the visitor attractions, all kind of come together I suppose and just kind of get their heads around what the year ahead might look like the challenges are and where the opportunities are. I suppose this year the golf is a big focus with Irish Open coming to Duneveg, the Walker Club coming to the hinge and they're going to be two key events during the year so I suppose that's kind of the highlight but obviously it's all about trying to bring the visitors into the four corners of Claire and getting them to stay as long as possible. And they're all the benefits and I've known out that every trader is going to be anticipating

9:23this with great enthusiasm about all the extra football and the extra spend that they're going to receive but on the flip side of that you also have to deal with the increased amounts of traffic, the increased amount of buses that are going to be coming to the area and the small bit of a headwreck that it caused for local residents as well so it's a tough one to manage as well and there's probably no perfect solution. There's no perfect solution, it's all about trying to bring communities with you and to get by in and understanding that you know where an event like the Irish Open comes to Duneveg and which okay it might have a motorway network into it but the importance of that event to that you know the Western tip of Claire is huge and the potential benefit and you know all the you know the farmers and the local residents back there their kids are getting so much jobs and careers ultimately out of the hotel in Duneveg and the golf club there so I suppose anything we can do to highlight the product of Claire I suppose there's a huge opportunity to bring visitors here and show them okay you might come for the golf but you'll get a picture of so much more that's enough or whether that's to go to Loupair or go to give some more or go to Bonrette or to Inesh Kaltreholly Island

10:27you know there's a whole suite of attractions now along with all those smaller independent attractions I suppose that are operating across the regions as well and it's quite important that they get a sense to see even that there's a lot of authority is there to support them and to ensure that the benefit is it comes to their doors as well.