On 5 April last, Ireland hosted a major Presidency Conference on Competitiveness and Sustainability of European Tourism entitled, Charting Tourism Success, in Dublin Castle. The aim of the conference was to bring representatives from the Irish and European tourism industry together with representatives from the European Commission and other policy makers to identify and discuss issues of common interest. The objective was to contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex issues which lie behind the broad aspiration of maintaining the competitiveness and sustainability of such a diverse sector as tourism.
To this end, a distinguished and diverse panel of speakers presented papers on a variety of topics, which addressed competitiveness at various levels including European, national, sectoral and enterprise level. The comments attributed to the head of the tourism unit in the European Commission were made in the context of his presentation under the heading, European Tourism — Competitive Destination Quality, in which he expressed the view that visitors are looking for genuine experience. He went on to say that special heritage should be honoured and celebrated, and be presented in a real way, which does not fabricate nor devalue its quality. He also added that visitors travel to experience something different, otherwise they may as well stay at home. Delivering quality should be about bringing out the special, distinctive features and flavours of a destination.
One of the key conclusions emerging from the conference, and one which I heartily endorse, was that destinations offering an authentic cultural experience where the tourist can engage and interact with local people, culture or landscape in a sustainable way stand to gain from increasingly sophisticated and educated visitors. Heritage and culture is one of the primary motivators of travel to Ireland with heritage sites attracting approximately two million visitors annually. The elements of our heritage that are the greatest interest to visitors are our built heritage such as castles, historic monuments and archaeology and the natural environment. However, Irish traditions, including music, song and dance, also form an important and integral part of our overall tourism product.
In terms of promoting Ireland as a destination for heritage and culture-based holidays, I can assure the Deputy that the State tourism agencies in all areas of their activities strongly emphasise real, as opposed to fabricated, heritage. Ireland's heritage is an important message within the overall international destination marketing campaigns carried out by Tourism Ireland. In addition, more than €300,000 is being spent in 2004 by Fáilte Ireland on promoting Ireland as a destination for this specific type of holiday.
The Deputy may wish to note that one of the key actions to support product development and innovation, identified in the report of the tourism policy review group, is to put in place the consultation, management and conservation arrangements necessary to achieve the designation of additional sites in Ireland as UNESCO world heritage sites, to add to the existing two such sites, the Boyne Valley and Skellig Michael. The review implementation group is pursuing this matter with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.
