Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 296: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism the progress made on the commitment in the programme for Government to develop, with Fáilte Ireland, rural based package style holidays through which bed and breakfast owners and farm holiday operators can offer activities such as walking, angling, golfing and cycling in addition to the provision of accommodation and quality home-cooked meals. [18093/08]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I am informed by Fáilte Ireland that a partnership of the Town and County Homes Association (TCHA) and Irish Farm Holidays (IFH) has come together, with the encouragement of Fáilte Ireland, to develop a number of theme-based holiday packages. Over 30 B&B owners in 14 counties have been selected and have agreed their specialist areas. The owners participated in a series of workshops between November 2007 and March 2008.

Following an evaluation of the concept, Fáilte Ireland is committed to working with the sector to encourage all operators to develop specialist packages as part of the Irish Home experience. I understand that a national steering group will be convened in June 2008 to develop this initiative further and roll it out nationally. This will be underpinned by a market communications and promotions campaign for 2009. Irish Home Operators are being encouraged to become members of regional activity hubs. To date an adventure hub has been established in Cork/Kerry, a family-friendly hub in the South East, and a rural activity hub in the Glen of Aherlow.

Fáilte Ireland has, as part of its support service to the wider Irish tourism sector, developed ebusiness seminars and workshops. Emphasis is placed on motivating and convincing operators that doing business on-line is not only desirable but increasingly essential to remain viable. The focus is on allocation management and e-distribution, so that the participants are aware of and capable of using various options for selling accommodation and specialist packages on-line. I further understand that ebusiness programmes are currently being implemented on a regional basis to encourage operators in this sector to seek more on-line business. A further set of ebusiness programmes will take place in Autumn of 2008. A number of workshops designed to encourage operators to provide quality evening meals for tourists are taking place throughout the country at present. These are the latest in a series of such workshops.