Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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54. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht her plans post-Covid-19 for an international marketing plan to highlight the EuroVelo 1 Route, which travels along the western seaboard in tandem with the Wild Atlantic Way. [21598/21]

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I know the Minister is a cycling enthusiast, so I have a cycling-related question. I love cycling myself.

For the last seven years, the Wild Atlantic Way has been a huge success. It has been a magnet in bringing tourists to our country - pre-Covid, of course. Recently, we have seen beautiful signs being erected in County Clare and the west of Ireland, which read: "EuroVelo 1". It is an 11,000 km long cycleway that goes all the way from Norway to Sagres in Portugal, taking in huge skelps of the west of Ireland, including County Clare. I would love to know how the Minister and her Department propose to promote that beyond the signage to use as a tool to attract tourists into Ireland.

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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I saw a tweet recently showing the Deputy's cycling endeavours in cycling in from Clare. Fair play to him. It is the future of sustainable travel.

The Government travel advisory currently in operation against all non-essential international travel, in addition to other public health restrictions, means that unfortunately there is virtually no inbound tourism at present. As a result, Tourism Ireland, the body responsible for marketing the island of Ireland overseas as a holiday destination, has suspended the majority of its overseas marketing campaigns. Any recommencement of active marketing of Ireland overseas will be guided by the public health advice and decisions by Government on international travel. 

Tourism Ireland is, however, undertaking an extensive, largely virtual, programme of activity to ensure that we are in the best possible place to immediately start converting business for tourism operators across the island of Ireland when the time is right. While we continue to face quite a bit of uncertainty, Tourism Ireland is actively planning for the restart of inbound tourism and in that regard, is developing a new business plan incorporating a three-phase approach to restart, rebuild and ultimately redesign demand.

The restart phase will involve the development of a range of immediate kick-start activities to drive demand for travel to Ireland, as soon as it is safe to do so. The rebuild phase will be rolled out as demand begins to return and will include highly visible activity in our overseas markets with the greatest potential to deliver value. Demand management will be introduced during the redesign phase, to ensure tourism has a sustainable future and meets the long-term aspirations of the industry and the country.

Over the next number of years, it is likely that we will see an increase in demand for outdoor leisure experiences based on nature, such as walking, cycling and mountaineering. The Wild Atlantic Way has been a huge success to date and it will continue to be extensively promoted in Tourism Ireland’s future marketing campaigns. The EuroVelo 1 route overlaps with much of the Wild Atlantic Way and incorporates many of our most popular greenways. It is therefore very much aligned with some our key tourism policy objectives, such as the promotion of more outdoor leisure experiences and increasing tourism to the regions.

Both Tourism Ireland and I are very much open to leveraging the EuroVelo 1 route to promote cycling tourism in Ireland, should a suitable opportunity arise.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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That is music to my ears. Speaking of music, the Minister will certainly have heard the song "It's a Long Way from Clare to Here". It is fabulous for one to step up on the pedals of a bike in my home village of Meelick, knowing that going north, one will pass through Galway and Mayo and ultimately get to Norway if one keeps following the route, and travelling in a southerly direction, ultimately get to Sagres in Portugal.

There are huge opportunities here. I know that the Minister's Department recently invested €70 million in a whole masterplan for developing Lough Derg and the whole mid-west tourism product, but there is so much tourism potential here. As we look to recover tourism beyond Covid, including our hotels, guesthouses and outdoor attractions like the Cliffs of Moher, Bunratty Folk Park and Moher Hill Open Farm, we should really focus on these signs that say that we are part of an 11,000 km European cycleway. There is colossal potential. Not every tourist wants to get on a tour bus, fly in on a jet or travel on a train. As we have seen in recent years, many of them get their saddlebags, go on a bike and tour the west of Ireland. Therefore, a promotional package around this initiative could reap massive rewards not just for County Clare, but all of Ireland.

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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Indeed, that fits in with our programme for Government commitment with the development of that new national tourism policy with sustainability at its very core, which will commence later this year when the sector begins to recover.

Fáilte Ireland has collaborated with Sport Ireland to identify and signpost the full EuroVelo 1 route right along the western seaboard. This work is nearing completion, with just one county left to finalise its route and erect relevant signs.

The EuroVelo 1 cycling route is part of a much wider linear route which, as the Deputy stated, starts in Norway and finishes in Donegal. Fáilte Ireland will continue to work with Sport Ireland to ensure that the route is fully signposted and will promote it on the Discover Ireland website. Fáilte Ireland's programme teams will flag it as an element of the outdoor offering in the destination experience development plan areas and towns and villages through which it passes.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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An obvious extension of the initiative would be to invite the Tour de France to come to Ireland, as we did very successfully in 1998. It passed through Dublin and into counties Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford and Cork. It was a huge success. The tour has a global audience each year of 1 billion people. It would be an obvious extension of the EuroVelo 1 initiative.

When I was Mayor of Clare, 18 months ago, I proposed the idea at a council meeting. Like many council motions, we believed that it had been buried in the annals of the council, never to be seen again.

We subsequently discovered it had gone to the Minister's Department and was being investigated as a viable headline tourism option for the coming years.

I ask that the Minister take up the cudgels on this matter. It is a fabulous opportunity. We have lost out on European Championship football games in Dublin this year. Some of these issues are beyond our control but we need to strategise beyond the Covid crisis. We need to look at our natural assets in the west, build on the success of the Wild Atlantic Way and exploit all the wonderful possibilities of EuroVelo 1. I urge the Minister to try to bring the Tour de France to this country in the coming years. The natural route for it would be to follow the Wild Atlantic Way and incorporate EuroVelo 1. As a Clare citizen, I look forward to welcoming the competitors along the beautiful roads of east and west Clare.

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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I do not know whether the Deputy has sent something in writing on his proposal to me or my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers. I will discuss all proposals that are brought my way. Fáilte Ireland is collaborating with Sport Ireland in ensuring EuroVelo 1 is signposted properly.