Mr. Aidan Pender:

The Vice Chairman touches upon a core issue for us in Fáilte Ireland working on the supply side of tourism. We are trying to support tourism product and refresh it and enable access to the Irish tourism product. If we focus on the core expectation of the visitor which is to have a unique Irish authentic experience, one cannot stray too far away from the GAA, the Irish language, our heritage, our folklore, logainmneacha and other things that are uniquely Irish. We have not explored that sufficiently.

We are in discussions with the authorities in Croke Park on the skyline tour, stadium tour, etc. It is unfortunate that the two companies doing the hop-on hop-off tours, Dualway and Dublin Bus, have not managed to get across to the north side of Dublin to Croke Park, Glasnevin Cemetery and other Office of Public Works sites. There is a cluster of important attractions of which we could make more. We are discussing that with Croke Park and the tour bus companies.

However, the real opportunity we are missing is at local club level. The Vice Chairman mentioned the Camp Nou. Much of the time we focus on Croke Park. Many visitors from Britain, France or Germany will have a 60,000 or 70,000-seat stadium in their region and so that might not be the thing. However, some of these countries might not experience anything like 500 people around a hurling pitch on a summer's evening where two local parishes are playing each other. That involves the following: the intensity, passion, emotion and skill of the game; the local sense of community and all that goes with that; being brought up for the tea, sandwiches and a few drinks afterwards; and the Irish music and entertainment. This is Irish music being played by Irish people for Irish people as opposed to just for tourists allowing them to be part of something that is really Irish.

That is a huge challenge. Our interest in the GAA is to see how we can connect people who happen to be in County Clare to find that action, which is there on their doorstep. It is a great example of product bundling or packaging. A bed and breakfast can be packaged with a local restaurant, hotel or GAA club, fishing or some folklore. If we could get better at that, the local GAA clubs would be a crucial part of what we package together. Summer evenings around Ireland and GAA pitches around the west coast of Ireland represent an enormous potential that we have not yet tapped.