Mr. Paul Kelly:

I am sure Mr. Gibbons will talk from a marketing and positioning point of view. I will talk from a product point of view. It is important to say that there is a considerable amount of development going on at the moment. We have approximately 50 to 55 large capital grant projects in train all around the country. I think 15 of those are due to be completed and to open between 2020 and 2021. The work is continuing on those projects. One or two of them were delayed because of Covid but, in the main, they are all continuing.

We have invested €15 million with local authorities in destination towns all around the country. The Department of Transport is funding the development of greenways in conjunction with local authorities. Local authorities around the country have carried out public realm work to enhance their outdoor offering through cycle lanes, outdoor seating and stuff. All of that development has continued apace while we have been, effectively, closed to international tourists. When those international tourists come back here, Ireland is going to be a far better place to come to than before the closure because of all that development work. We will be going in with a strong product offering in that regard.

There are a couple of key areas when we look to the future. The outdoors is essential and opening up and improving access to the outdoors, and boosting its enjoyability are essential. Making the most of our State-owned land and assets is essential, as is improving access to them. I am thinking of our national parks, Office of Public Works, OPW, sites, Coillte sites and all the assets that local authorities have.

The digitisation of the industry is also important. There are parts of the Irish industry, such as activity providers and attractions, that are behind the best in class in the world in their digital presence and online bookability. During the pandemic, the global digital transformation has been massive. Some of the metrics that the likes of Google look at indicate that the world has moved as much, in digital terms, in the past eight months as it had in the previous eight years. A huge transformation has just happened. That means that our tourism businesses and products must have a brilliant online presence. We have done a complete overhaul of discoverireland.ie. I know that Mr. Gibbons has done a fantastic job on ireland.comfor international visitors. We need all of our industry to be in the same space and we have a big project that is going to be driving that.

The final thing I will say relates to sustainability. That is another big initiative that needs to happen and the tourism sector needs to play its part in Ireland meeting its climate change targets. We need to drive the further decarbonisation of the tourism industry and find more sustainable transport solutions and things like that. That is another big theme for the next five years.