COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, May 13, 2013

QUESTION NO. 10 (i)

QUESTION: Councillor W. Lavelle

To ask the Manager to present a report on the current operations and work programme of South Dublin Tourism?

REPLY:

South Dublin County Tourism will hold its Annual General Meeting at the end of May 2013. Currently the company's Business Plan is under review and the final draft of the Plan will be brought before the Board Members at the AGM for their approval and / or amendment.

The main work programme for the company in 2013 revolves around the Gathering 2013 events. The Gathering is a national tourism initiative by the government whereby Irish people living abroad, as well as people with Irish connections are encouraged to visit Ireland in 2013 to celebrate The Gathering 2013. The primary drive is to maximise the numbers of overseas visitors - visitors who would not have come here normally. The target set by Failte Ireland for the country is 300,000 incremental visitors.

South Dublin County Tourism has, through its members and the various sporting venues within its jurisdiction, arrranged more than thirty different events. These events are listed on the website - www.thegatheringdublin.com -and include a wide range of sporting activities as well as business conferences with very substantial numbers of visitors anticipated. The sporting venues include Tallaght Stadium, the National Basketball Arena, the Baseball Diamond at Corkagh Park, and CityWest Hotel which can cater for very large indoor sporting and business events.

All the sporting events organised will have admission free of charge and this will give local people the opportunity to see events such as American Football and Baseball and at the same time, the public can contribute simply by creating an athmosphere at the events which will add to the ocasion and which will also make it easier for SDCT to encourage the visitors to return in two years time to compete again in a number of these events.

To date, we have already had approximately 6,000 international visitors at the events held between January and April, and this has resulted in approximately 9,000 bed nights for the member hotels in South Dublin County.

South Dublin County Tourism is successful and pro active because it is based on a simple collaborative model. Each of the members, particularly the hotels, recognise that they are  far more likely to get large volumes of business if they work with each other rather than merely competing with each other. This allows the Tourism company to be able to offer a very large number of beds to a potential international client, all under the umbrella of SDCT.  South Dublin County Council provides funding for the company and also works closely with the company to help attract visitors.