John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

In replying to Question No. 4, I set out the details of plans we have made and implemented with a view to redressing the imbalance to which Deputy Deenihan referred. It certainly exists. Last year saw the largest number of visitors ever to our shores of 6.4 million. Revenue from tourism also increased. While the number of tourists from mainland Europe and the United States of America increased substantially, the difficulty arose with a slight drop off of approximately 1% in the number of visitors from Britain. Several factors were involved in this trend, not least of which was competition from within Britain itself where a major campaign was launched by tourism interests with a view to keeping people at home. In addition, independent former eastern bloc countries ran major campaigns in Britain.

It is sometimes forgotten that intrinsically attached to fluctuations in visitor numbers from Britain is the exchange rate between sterling and the euro. Currently, the value of the dollar against the euro disincentivises some Americans from travelling to Ireland despite the growth of the market. Tourism Ireland is engaged in the most aggressive marketing campaign in which it has ever been involved in Britain where we are spending approximately 38% of our total marketing fund this year to redress any difficulties which arose last year. Incidentally, a decrease of 1% in the British market last year represented a pretty good result by international standards. Given the decline in visitor numbers from Britain to other countries, one could describe the Irish experience as a heel against the head. I hope sincerely that Ireland has many heels against the head on 27 February at Lansdowne Road.

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