Vol. 557 No. 5
51 Mr. Wall asked the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism the terms of the review of tourism policy which he recently announced; the time-frame envisaged for this review; the person who is to conduct the review; the terms of reference; if tourism representative organisations will be involved in the review; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22753/02]
A process of major change in the institutional arrangements for the delivery of tourism policy is being undertaken at present. The new all-island tourism marketing body, Tourism Ireland Ltd., commenced operations in 2002. The Government this week in accordance with An Agreed Programme for Government approved the text of a Bill to establish the National Tourism Development Authority bringing together the functions currently carried out by Bord Fáilte and CERT. These new agencies require an up-dated policy orientation for their work.
Up to 2001, there had been ten years of uninterrupted tourism growth and the expectation, both nationally and internationally, was of continued growth. However, recent major shocks, such as the impact of foot and mouth disease and the aftermath of the events of 11 September 2001 have had a serious impact on tourism which when combined with adverse trends emerging in the global economy, has stimulated a stock-taking of the existing policy approach.
We have reached a significant point in the evolution of tourism at which it is timely for the Government to oversee a major policy review and I recently informed my colleagues in Government of my intention to initiate such a review. This initiative is supported by the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation.
I envisage the review will include an assessment of the performance and potential of the sector and the identification of key determinants of both an industry and Government strategy for the future development of the industry.
It will be obvious to the House that the terms of reference for this project need to be carefully scoped given the broad range of external influences on the development of tourism. There would be a number of elements to this exercise; first, a review of the performance and economic impact of tourism in Ireland in recent years; second, a stocktaking of the total public funding and support for tourism development, its sources and modes of delivery and value for money; and third, to the extent feasible, an examination of trends in the international competitiveness of Irish tourism in terms of value for money, pricing, quality and service levels.
The next major element of the exercise would be to assess future tourism market potential for Ireland in terms of priority source markets, categories of visitors, changes in holiday taking trends and level of international competition. All of that work should then enable us to start mapping out a revised strategy for the future development of the sector.
Additional informationI envisage that the review will be led by my Department with significant participation by the tourism State agencies, the industry and, possibly, some other Departments whose polices and programmes have a significant impact on tourism development.
As to working arrangements, a good deal of research and information already exists and this will be reviewed. The tourism agencies should be in a position to take on responsibility for large sections of the work. The work of any external consultants will be focused on areas where they can add value and where independent objective advice is needed.
It is my intention that those involved in steering the exercise would meet as soon as possible and I hope the external consultancy exercise will be scoped and launched before year end. My objective is that the review phase of the work would be completed by March 2003 and that the strategy formation phase would be finalised later in the spring.
I welcome the Minister's reply in relation to a review. Anyone with an interest in tourism will know it is long overdue. The Minister set out a rota of all aspects of this review which will have to take place. What timescale does he envisage? How long will it take for the review to be completed? I welcome the Minister's recent statement in which he said that in his tenure as Minister, he hopes there will be 5% growth each year. How does he view that in the context of Bord Fáilte's budget and the cutbacks in the recent Estimates? What is the Minister's vision for the future of the tourism industry as set out in the terms of the current review?
I wish Deputy Wall well in his new role as spokesperson for the Labour Party on Arts, Sport and Tourism. I have no doubt he will make a very constructive contribution to this area, as he did in his previous portfolio.
It is hoped that phase one of the review will be completed in the near future. We anticipate it being completed by the early spring. Phase two of the review should be completed by late spring. The next stage will involve seeking to implement a selection of the main recommendations which are deemed to be most worthwhile.
With regard to tourism in general, I anticipate that this year will be better than had been predicted. While the American market will be down by up to 10%, that is an improvement on the earlier forecast of a downturn of as much as 20%. The British market is indicating a potential growth of some 6% this year, bringing the total number of visitors from there up from 4.35 million to 4.6 million. I anticipate that the growth of visitors from the Continent should be in the order of 3%. The growth for the entire year should be of the order of 3%. That represents an outstanding performance because the backdrop, to say the least, was unenviable in respect of the difficulties in regard to foot and mouth disease, September 11 and the downturn in the global economy, which all contributed adversely to the performance of the tourism industry. In those circumstances the industry has indicated that it is extremely resilient and this should be remem bered in terms of growing the industry in the future.
I am disappointed with the return from the Continent from where we continue to have far too few visitors. We have a market of some 400 million people on the mainland of Europe most of whom are, on average, a two hour plane journey away and yet our share of the market remains minuscule. I hope to reverse that in terms of future marketing strategies.
