John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

The hosting of the Ryder Cup at the K Club in September is a key event for Irish tourism this year. While the event itself will undoubtedly contribute significantly to overseas tourism revenues in 2006, the principal benefits of the agreement between Ireland and the European tour will flow from the promotional package that is part of the agreement and which has extended in the nine years since the agreement was signed. In this context, the Government has made a significant level of resources available to Fáilte Ireland to ensure the tourism spin-off to Ireland, and to golfing tourism in particular, is maximised. This has involved one of the most intensive and sustained tourism event promotion programmes ever undertaken and this year's event will be an exciting and spectacular culmination to this promotional campaign.

This programme is not only about promoting Ireland as a premium golf destination. The media coverage of this major sporting event presents a unique opportunity to market all that Ireland has to offer as a tourism destination. To that end, both Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland have been working closely together over the last number of years in the lead up to the event to optimise the promotional spin-off and this work will intensify over the course of this year.

For example, Tourism Ireland's network of overseas market offices are being deployed to maximise the positive publicity which the television coverage, with an expected audience of over 1 billion in 150 countries, will generate. Working with the Ryder Cup team in Fáilte Ireland, an unprecedented level of promotional activity has been organised around the staging of the competition. In all our key markets, dedicated budget lines have been allocated to Ryder Cup related activities, including print advertising, direct mail campaigns and consumer promotions at key golfing events in the lead-up to the event.

In regard to golf tourism specifically, Fáilte Ireland has used the Ryder Cup as a central plank of its golf marketing activity since 1999. For instance, Ireland has taken advantage of the golf events supported as part of the Ryder Cup deal to showcase the best of Irish golf across our key markets. Many of our overseas visitors cite televised coverage of the Irish Open, European Open or Irish Seniors Open as their first exposure to Irish golf. Furthermore, Fáilte Ireland's marketing team has attended key golf tournaments across all key markets to showcase the best of Irish golf, be it links or parkland. This year the team, in conjunction with the various regional tourism authorities, will take promotional stands at 13 of the Ryder Cup qualifying events.

In addition, Fáilte Ireland has put in place arrangements that will allow the marketing team to piggyback other tourism products on the back of the exposure being secured around the Ryder Cup. They will be placing multi-product destination advertisements rather than solely golf material television advertising around all key golf events in 2006, including the Ryder Cup.

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