The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) today welcomed Minister John O'Donoghue's announcement of the new Board members for Fáilte Ireland, the new tourism development authority. According to the Federation, the Board under the chairmanship of Gillian Bowler and with Shaun Quinn as Chief Executive now has the urgent task of merging the activities of CERT with the retained functions of Bord Fáilte - product and regional development and promotion together with the increasingly important function of marketing the Irish tourist product in the domestic market.

Jim Murphy, President, IHF said, "We believe this Authority will provide an opportunity to invigorate domestic tourism marketing activities whilst improving the efficiency and impact of the Regional Tourism Authorities, in the overall objective of benefiting Ireland's largest unsubsidised industry."

Mr Murphy said that an early challenge facing the new organisation will be the effective implementation of the recommendations from the Tourism Policy Review Group. The new tourism policy will have far reaching priorities to reform Irish tourism and build on its success to further improve the tourism product through a new vision and operating in partnership with the Irish tourism industry. Tourism is Ireland's largest indigenous industry with 150,000 employees.

"Fáilte Ireland has a budget of some €70m and its objectives will be largely focused on product development, domestic marketing and training for the industry. It aims to foster sustainable and competitive tourism development by working in partnership with industry. As the biggest employer within the tourism sector with 60,000 employees, the IHF looks forward to a healthy, productive interaction with the new agency which will result in increasing Irish tourism's role as a strong driver of Ireland's economic growth," comments Mr Murphy.

The IHF stated that the vision of bringing together Bord Fáilte's domestic marketing functions and CERT's functions to provide trained employees for the sector made absolute sense - both from an economic and synergy perspective. Fáilte Ireland has a clear brief for training and recruitment, product development, marketing and setting standards, it will augment the overseas tourism marketing activities being carried out by Tourism Ireland Limited.

Mr Murphy maintained that the people, place, service standards and the pace of Ireland are the core assets of the Irish tourist product. It is essential that an effective Fáilte Ireland is up and running as soon as possible to assist and guide the tourism industry through effective training, product development and regional promotion programmes.

He continued that it is a well-known fact that the Irish tourism industry is facing major challenges. Fáilte Ireland will be a tremendous asset to the sectors individual endeavours to continue to grow the industry, if the proper vision, objectives and implementation programmes are put in place.

"Minister John O'Donoghue has shown leadership and initiative in putting in place the strong Board with substantial tourism experience and we now hope that it will be adequately resourced to efficiently and effectively implement its mandate" Mr Murphy concluded.

For information contact:
Siobhan Molloy / Niamh Boylan, Weber Shandwick FCC
Phone: 01 6760168 / 086 8175066 / 086 3809191