Minister of State for Tourism & Sport Michel Ring with Mary King, Fáilte Ireland at Merrion Square
Fáilte Ireland’s Merrion Square project has been chosen as one of twenty cases of innovation and best practice by the European Commission in a new report – ‘Enhancing the Competitiveness of Tourism in the EU’.
The report contains 20 examples of tourism projects across Europe that have utilised best practice when implementing tourism projects which have led to increasing the competitiveness of the tourism industry across Europe.
Each of the 20 cases broadly illustrates one of four major themes; extending the season and diversifying the supply of tourist services; training, skills development and building capacity; developing the use of ICT; marketing and promotion.
The Minister of State for Tourism and Sport Michael Ring T.D. said:
“I welcome the inclusion of the Merrion Square project in this European Commission report – ‘Enhancing the Competitiveness of Tourism in the EU’. It is a clear indication that Ireland’s tourism sector recognises the need to develop innovative new product offerings to enhance our competitiveness as a visitor destination. I wish to congratulate the Merrion Square Network and Fáilte Ireland on the success of this project to date. I believe it will provide valuable lessons for the development of tourism product in Ireland.”
The Merrion Square project was chosen under the marketing and promotion theme as an example of a tourism project which used innovation to improve the basic market proposition and exploit new marketing tools.
Speaking about the project Mary King of Fáilte Ireland’s Research team explained –
“We are delighted to have been chosen as one of only 20 case studies highlighted in this report. Not only does it illustrate the success of the project, it also points to the fact that innovation is an extremely important aspect to increasing competitiveness in tourism.
“The Commission particularly referenced the project’s marketing strategy emphasising how the innovation process adopted by the project generated its own publicity which resulted in extensive media coverage and cost effective use of social media. We were delighted to be able to facilitate the process and hope to replicate this success in future projects.”
According to the report the project aimed to stimulate innovation in the nature of its offer by working with a broadly-based set of stakeholders in a structured programed designed to generate and test new ideas. By highlighting these examples of how policy can be put into action the report aims to support other countries and cities across Europe to develop similar approaches.
A full copy of the report can be found at:
www.ec.europa.eu
ENDS
For further information please contact:
Catherine Whelan – 01 8847181
Fáilte Ireland Communications Department
Jump to top