Ms Monica MacLaverty:

We have worked good deal on access in the Scandinavian market. Some 89% of Scandinavians who come to Ireland come to Dublin and stay in Dublin. It is a short-break market. We have had several successes with Norwegian Air, Aer Lingus, Ryanair and SAS, which has extended its capacity. The Viking heritage is very important. We have worked on that aspect this year with The Gathering, through Waterford, and we have created several Viking gatherings. Next year will see the celebration of 1014 and the Battle of Clontarf and that will be prominent in our marketing activities.

Then, without wishing to repeat what has been said already, there has been great innovation in the bed and breakfast sector. There is a category for searching ancestry which has been very popular this year, the year of The Gathering.

Reference was made to some of the local festivals in Carlow and Kilkenny. We ran specific campaigns for the Carlow arts festival and the Kilkenny cat laughs festival. As a result, the searches for hotel accommodation in Kilkenny from overseas visitors during that month grew by 141%. That is making its mark.

A point was made about the Irish language. It is a niche but we have been doing a promotion this year with Hibernian College, which has set up a free education module in the Irish language. We have rolled that out to all our markets overseas and to all the travel agency networks. It is a fun initiative to encourage people to have the cúpla focal and it has been very popular.