Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 29 March 2023
Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media
Challenges Facing Providers of Tourist Accommodation in Ireland: Discussion
Mr. Paul Kelly:
One of the challenges we are likely to have with Achill will be with visitor management more so than promotion. We continually work throughout the country to try to enhance the visitor experience with all the local authorities. Our new mechanism is what we call destination experience and development plans. We have a very exciting one in Clew Bay. That is where we align with all local stakeholders and local industry on the priority projects over a five-year time horizon to develop tourism in that region. For example, in Clew Bay, the Clew Bay looped cycle trail, building on the Great Western Greenway, is proving to be a very exciting project and is driving visitor numbers already. More work is continuing on that. We will continue to work on the development of Achill. We are in constant liaison with Mayo County Council on the proposed solution for Keem Beach in particular. There have been various different proposals about how we bring that fabulous landscape to life, some of which have been more problematic than others. It is on our capital project funding list once there is a proposal that is acceptable from an environmental as well as a visitor perspective.
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