National Parks and Wildlife Service

Fáilte Ireland and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) have a strategic partnership with the shared aim to enhance and promote the tourism experience at Ireland’s National Parks and Nature Reserves in a sustainable way.

Tourism opportunities at our National Parks 

The National Parks and Nature Reserves provide the opportunity for recreational, cultural and ecotourism and offer welcome opportunities for job creation and economic growth. It allows that local businesses may capitalise on enhanced tourism infrastructure, while continued investment in our National Parks provides new incentives to come into an area visitors might otherwise have overlooked. 

Even before COVID-19, nature-based tourism was a large and growing component of international tourism. Since the onset of the pandemic, this interest has accelerated and the outdoors has become increasingly attractive to consumers. We see a growing international demand for outdoors activities and recreation tourism, an appetite to ‘get away from it all’ in beautiful landscapes such as those found in the National Parks and Nature Reserves.

Given the importance of the National Parks and Nature Reserves as part of Ireland’s tourism offering, it is appropriate that the capital funding available to Fáilte Ireland should be used to improve the awareness of, and visitor experience of, our National Parks and Nature Reserves.