Ireland Ready with a Business Class Welcome

The Convention Centre Dublin (CCD)

As Convention Centre opens Fáilte Ireland welcomes 120 overseas VIPs with €500 million worth of potential business

Fáilte Ireland today welcomed the official opening of the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD) as the tourism authority embarks on a business tourism blitz with the arrival of 120 top buyers from across the globe. 

Welcoming the opening of the new centre Redmond O’Donoghue, Chairman of Fáilte Ireland, emphasised that Ireland is now in pole position as a business tourism destination –

“Ireland has always punched above its weight when it comes to business tourism and today’s opening of the convention centre provides a further advantage for Ireland to pitch for lucrative international business. 

Fáilte Ireland are already working to exploit this new asset - over the coming days we will be rolling out the red carpet to 120 conference organisers who between them are responsible for over half a billion Euro’s worth of potential business.”  

The national tourism development authority is exploiting the opening of the CCD by hosting “Meet in Ireland 2010” - a seven day programme, co-ordinated by Fáilte Ireland, for top international business tourism buyers. 

The main focus will be a business workshop tomorrow (Wednesday 8th September) which will allow 120 members of the Irish trade to meet and deal directly with the 120 international buyers.  These buyers represent up to €500 million worth of potential business over the next three years and include representatives from the US, Great Britain, Mainland Europe and South Africa as well as Australia and Canada. 

In addition to the main workshop event, a number of tours and information events have been organised to ensure this important group of buyers enjoy the full Irish experience. Tours of some of Ireland’s top business tourism venues, including the RDS and the recently opened Aviva Stadium, as well as visits to some of our top tourist attractions, will mean that buyers will view all that Ireland has to offer. 

Keith McCormack, Head of Business Tourism at Fáilte Ireland, believes that this event will not only put Ireland even squarely on the map for business tourism but it will also help reap significant economic benefits in the years to come.

“The opening of the Conference Centre provides us with a unique opportunity to showcase all that Ireland has to offer for the business tourist and we hope to persuade the top international buyers in this sector to bring their conferences and events to these shores in the near future. 

Business tourism is a highly competitive game, with the work involved in bidding for an international conference akin to a mini-Olympics bid. We have pulled out all the stops this week and are committed to fighting for a bigger piece of the international conference market - to bring in more delegates and revenue and ensure Ireland Inc reaps the benefits associated with this profitable sector.  The opening of the new Convention Centre significantly enhances our chance of doing this.” 

In 2009, Fáilte Ireland directly supported a total of 122 conferences attracting over 57,000 delegates and generated estimated revenue of over €85m.  So far in 2010, over 130 conferences have been directly supported, attracting almost 59,000 delegates and generating estimated revenue of almost €90 million.  

Research, carried out for Fáilte Ireland (polling over 1200 overseas delegates) showed that nine out of ten overseas delegates were very satisfied with their experience of Ireland as a destination for international conferences and almost 90% said they would recommend Ireland as a conference destination.  In addition, it was determined that the average value of an international delegate attending a conference in Ireland is just over €1500.

ENDS

For further information please contact:

Alex Connolly
Head of Communications – 086 7966320 / 01 8847884

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