Galway City Experience Development Plan

The Galway City Destination & Experience Development Plan (DEDP) is a five-year sustainable tourism development plan for Galway City and Salthill (the 'destination'). It represents a multi-stakeholder approach focused on growing the economic value of tourism and increasing the length of stay in the city. At its core, the Galway City DEDP will be built on the authenticity of the city; What is 'uniquely Galway.'
 
Galway City operates as a visitor hub for county Galway and access point to the Wild Atlantic way. The city performs strongly all year round with consistently high occupancy levels. In addition to its year-round appeal in the leisure market, it also performs strongly as a business events destination. It is strongly associated as a home to a year long calendar of great festivals and events.
 
Despite this level of tourism performance, the city experience is concentrated within a well-defined city centre area with low levels of visitor movement outside of this 'hotspot'. There is a limited choice of day time activities that encourage the visitor to explore more of the city and stay for longer. Visitors’ perception of Galway City is dominated by its vibrant night time economy and viewing the county as a base to explore the wider area.
 
The Galway City DEDP has been developed with the aim of dispersing Visitors across the city by increasing the range of things to do and see, providing Visitors with more reasons to stay longer in the city and increase visitor spend in the day and evening time. The international visitor focus will be on growing the value per visitor and growing their length of stay.