Yippee, the summer is here!

Yes, yes, yes!!!! It was officially the start of the meteorological summer on Wednesday 1^st June and some say that we have much to look forward to over the next weeks and months.

The recent run of Mediterranean weather has set us all off on a “happy footing”, unless of course you are about to sit Junior and Leaving cert exams! It always amazes me that the weather, since records began, is at its glorious best just as we imprison our kids in stifling exam halls and subject them to two or three hours of trying to unpick the complex grey matter that resides between their ears. Good luck to all concerned!

The City and its wider environs have seen some positive stories recently. For example the berthing of the huge cruise ship, Celebrity Silhouette, just off Dunmore East and the thousands of day-trippers who visited the City Centre, giving a much needed boost to many a thirsty, dehydrated shop till. Of course the continued location filming of Redwater in this village, will undoubtedly add to the “Sunny South East” mantra and I am sure all involved in this production will be relishing the summer weather that currently betters most of continental Europe.

With many a festival also on the horizon for the City and wider afield there should be plenty to get our teeth sunk into and lots to do for residents and visitors alike.

“City In Bloom” will shortly burst into life and draping the Waterford in a magical multi-coloured coat of wondrous joy that will stay with us right up to September. Spraoi will be back before we know it and then there is Day Tripper, admittedly in a new venue, not the traditional City Centre location, but still promoting a line-up, that has once again something for everyone, whether you are young or an auld one! The much vaunted Summerval has much to live up to if it is to validate all the promised hype and we hope that the festival can deliver on its €138,000 funded budget. Actually adding significantly to the City Centre footfall? We will keep a close eye on this one.

If festivals are not your thing, then you only have to travel a few miles out of the City Centre to find the type of scenery that would whet the appetite of Allsopp and Spencer. “Now here’s a view!”, we could all confidently boast to this pair of presenters.

Our region has the best of both sea and mountain views. Depending on which way you drive our coast road, you get two completely differing panoramas and two vistas that would grace the cover of any Lonely Planet guide or a Michael Palin travel book. We really are spoiled for choice.

Sea swimming is of course a must and we have kilometre upon kilometre of hushed, unspoiled beaches just waiting to be discovered.

These, mostly free attractions, should and could be the envy of many another county. But sadly, once again, we seem to be possibly sinking to the bottom of the league when attracting these much vaunted International Visitors who seem to be spending many a Euro outside of the South East.

This has always puzzled me and bewildered many more besides. When so many citizens of Waterford, are aware of just what we have to offer, why oh why is this message not being spread, by those promoters of Irish tourism? 

Are we now finding ourselves, a regional tourist area, that has literally fallen between the two stools that are the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland’s Ancient East? Are we the furthest away point from both of these behemoths and therefore seen as “just off the beaten track!”

Are we happy to be once again feeding off the odd crumb indignantly tossed to us by the powers that be?

If we are to compete with the other more established tourism brands then we must differentiate our product.

“People Make Waterford” so let’s make that happen!

Tourism – the biggest industry in the World!

Tell me what you really think.

Those readers who know me will know that over the last twelve months I have literally come out of the closest in my Lycra and can officially be described as a MAMIL (middle aged man in Lycra). It is a hobby that has taken me all over the south east and further afield, around this island of green. In fact since I had to hung up my golf bats (due to old rugby injuries), cycling is a sport I have taken to my heart over the last 15 months and I am now just a few of kilometres short of cycling 10,000km. I, like most of today’s cyclists have an App, as there is an App for everything, and this App also show that I have climbed nearly 62,000m in those 15 months - hard to comprehend just how high that is.

Who needs the Tour de France when we have so much available to us on our doorstep here in Waterford.

The unseasonably good weather has allowed me to continue to cycle in my Lycra shorts over the last couple of weekends and last Saturday and Sunday was no different. So mild was the weather that I even managed to see a few butterflies out and about, and I also managed to be hit by several bumble bees, and being smacked on the face by a bumble bee at 30 plus kph stings like hell!

It has amazed me that as we head into the depths of winter our wonderful countryside and coastline are still accessible whether you are on a bike, in a car or simply just walking. Being able to see the vast array of autumnal colours that coat our countryside at this time of the year I can see why this is the favourite time for so many people. There were simply oodles of people out and about over the weekend and car parks that access our stunning coves and beeches, whilst not heaving, were very busy with families taking the opportunity to enjoy the extremely mild weather and get one or two last autumnal walks in, with the dog, before the winter weather finally decides to arrive.

The more I cycle around Waterford and the south east, the more I come to appreciated exactly what we have on our doorstep and I do often wonder if we are really utilising this natural beauty for the benefit of ourselves and as a potential tourism income generator.

We all know that Ireland’s Ancient East has been designed as a tourism driver in an attempt to balance the tens of millions being spent on dragging millions of tourist “out west” to the Wild Atlantic Way. Yet we read recently that funding for this project across Waterford and the south east has not been forthcoming and we must ask why? I would also hazard a guess that many readers will not be aware that the Ireland’s Ancient East project is now over two years old and we are yet to see any real economic benefits from this new branding.

 

In my 10,000km of cycling around the south east I have yet to see one sign proclaiming that you are in Ireland’s Ancient East and I am yet to see any real signs of branding that will encourage our tourists to spend their Euro in Waterford and this region. I fear that we are yet again being dreadfully acceptant that what has been delivered to date is satisfactory and adequate to compete with other tourism offerings.

We have accessible scenery that rivals the very best in Ireland and we have a tourism offering that certainly competes with some of the more established brands in Ireland and yet we seem to be, once again, the poorer cousin when it comes to funding and shouting about just what we have to offer.

More must be done for Waterford and the south east as after all tourism is the biggest industry in the World!

Ireland's Ancient East needs to deliver today!

On Thursday 25^th June I was kindly invited, by Minister Paudie Coffey TD, to attend a workshop on the tourism project called Ireland’s Ancient East, which was chaired by Minister Pascal Donohoe TD, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport.

So many holiday choices.

It was great to note that Minister Donohoe spent the whole day in Waterford City and County seeing at firsthand our tourism offering and also I am sure that he took the opportunity to meet and greet many businesses involved in his ministerial portfolio.

We met in the Granville Hotel with industry representatives and members of the Council Executive.

As we are all aware Ireland’s Ancient East project was muted quite some time ago (possible as long ago as two years) and is in every single way the response to the highly successful Wild Atlantic Way project launched a number of years ago. The Wild Atlantic Way is literally pulling hundreds of thousands of tourists to the West and the unfortunate consequence of this is that less and less International tourists are coming to the Waterford and the South East. The Wild Atlantic Way has been a massively successful project and there can be absolutely no doubt that the strength of this new west coast brand will be nearly impossible to compete with and therefore we are yet again playing catch up to the rest of Ireland Inc.

Ireland's Ancient East.

The simple truth is that Waterford and the South East get the smallest amount of International tourist and more alarmingly we get a very insignificant amount of the available overseas tourism spend. And it is this very small percentage of spend that we should all be very concerned about. It is Tourism Ireland that promotes all things Irish in terms of this Emerald Isle as a destination. They really are only concerned with visiting numbers and the reality is that it makes no difference if 7 million tourists come to just one place as long as that place is in Ireland somewhere. So as a destination attractor Ireland’s Ancient East will have to be very special indeed if we are to get an ever increasing larger slice of the International tourism pie.

Despite all the efforts over the last number of years Waterford is still seen as a “very quick visit” for International tourists and as a results many spend literally a couple of hours, and a couple of Euro, in Waterford Crystal and the Viking Triangle and then hop back on to a tour bus and then it is off to Kilkenny or off down to the West of Ireland.

This of course is not what we want and the Ireland’s Ancient East project has to go an awful long way go to remedy this leakage of tourists and their much needed injection of Euro into our local economy. We are almost back to the same old scenario when our tourist numbers visited Kilbarry, bypassing the City altogether, and stayed two hours then it was off down the Cork Road and into the West.

The Wild Atlantic Way.

The fact the politicians from within Fine Gael cannot agree on whether Waterford should have its own tourism offering as part of Ireland’s Ancient East or be part of the wider Wild Atlantic Way does give cause for concern when you consider just how far behind we are in terms of our offering. On the day the Minister Donohoe was in Waterford his party colleague, Mr Deasy TD, was on WLR FM calling for Waterford Council to once again push for inclusion in the Wild Atlantic way. I personally believe that we have to have our own unique offering and from my very limited knowledge of all things Wild and Atlantic I do not believe we are in fact on the Atlantic at all, and we are on the Celtic Sea (I think) and as such we need our own unique selling point as part of a wider tourism offering! 

Interesting to note that Cork is hedging its bets and is on both maps of the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland's Ancient East - you have got to hand it to them!

Minister Donohoe stated that he wished to see 600,000 additional tourists come to the South East by 2020, but that timescale is of course far too late or Waterford City and the wider South East region and this was pointed out to the Minister during the workshop. Quite simply need those 600,000 additional tourist now and next year and not 4 or 5 years away. Like our retail sector we need to see increased numbers coming immediately to the City and County, and all manner of hills and mountains need to be moved to achieve this. I often wonder if it is only me that can see the need for urgency and rapid implementation of projects that will bring financial security to the City and I do wonder if other see the City and County through a pair of optically challenge set of rose tinted glasses.

I pointed out to the Minister that communicating the messaging of the project is key and vital to its success, and that all front-line responders needed to be aware of the project and its objectives so that tourist would benefit from the correct information. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, unless the appropriate senior civil servants and their departments get behind the project it is doomed to be moving along at a snail’s pace when we require the implementation speed of a Peregrine falcon!

When you consider that most tour operators are already selling 18 to 24 months ahead we are realistically taking about 2017 at the very earliest before we can even look at persuading these tour operators to come and consider Ireland’s Ancient East. And we will then have try to persuade these operators to leave their traditional markets and bear in mind that these existing markets will be fighting tooth and nail to keep their existing supply chain and that tourism income. It really will be an monumental uphill struggle.

The success of Ireland’s Ancient East project will ultimately be down to buy-in from all sectors concerned within the tourism industry and history tells us, which we never seems to learn from, that for such a project to work we need to see real on-the-ground-work being down and figuratively speaking we need to see people prepared to “wear out their shoe leather”.

Failure to get the industry informed and get the industry enthused will deliver nothing. It is all very well communicating this message internally and within Government Departments but getting the message out to a wider stakeholder group is a whole different proposition.

And we can see similar mistakes with the opportunities around the Purple Flag in Waterford, where there has been a communication void in terms of message reinforcement. Yes, we need better stakeholder buy-in but the whole message dissemination around the Purple Flag in Waterford leaves one wondering if it could not have been done better.

Alchemists workshop.

So, the Ireland’s Ancient East project has the potential to deliver, but only if Minister Donohoe is prepared to rattle a few cages, stand on a few toes and move the year 2020 to 2017.

Though I am not sure alchemy is in his portfolio!