myguideTravel Blog

Visit with An Taoiseach

July 26th, 2008

 On a very hot and humid Thursday, July 17, 2008, I was fortunate enough to attend a reception for An Taoiseach Brian Cowen, TD, in New York. It was held at the residence of Niall Burgess (consul general of Ireland in New York) and was in honor of the first official visit of Mr. Cowen  to the US as prime minister.  The event I attended was to introduce the leader of the Republic of Ireland to the travel trade in the USA who specialize in tourism to Ireland and also served as an opportunity for Mr. Cowen to reiterate the importance of tourism to the island of Ireland and the commitment of  his administration to support tourism during such a challenging time.

 During a speech on Friday, June 27, 2008, in Birr, Co. Offaly, Mr. Cowen stated that he recognized tourism as ‘central to Ireland’s future economic development’.  He reiterated this fact during the reception in New York and pledged to work with industry members to support tourism. Travel from the US to Ireland has been off this year for a variety of reasons, but mostly due to the sluggish US economy, weak consumer confidence and poor Dollar to Euro exchange rate. American tourists to Ireland are vitally imporant, as they tend to stay longer and spend more than visitors from other nations. 

 This is an issue of great importance to myguideTravel, as our myguideIreland brand is a market leader in tourism to Ireland, Ireland is our largest market overall for inbound tourism and the US is the biggest source of these tourists to Ireland.

  It was a pleasant afternoon and one where An Taoiseach said what the tourism industry attendees wanted to hear. Hopefully, Mr. Cowen and his government will follow through on their commitments and continue to fund and support the tourism professionals in the US who contribute to one of Ireland’s most important sources of growth. The government’s people responsible for continuing this success, Paul O’Toole (chief executive of Tourism Ireland) and Joe Byrne (TI’s Head of North America) are competent and talented and also have great teams working with them. They do need more funding to compete with the many other destinations on offer from the US and I, for one, hope to see the Irish government step up.

  While in New York, Mr. Cowen also visited with leaders of other industries important to Ireland’s economy and discussed the plight of undocumented Irish migrants in the US with elected officials here.

Entry Filed under: Ireland, Travel