The chief executive of Fáilte Ireland Paul Kelly suggested the lack of affordable hotel accommodation available at popular Irish tourist spots might be an opportunity to promote “lesser-known destinations”.
With the tourism industry dogged by complaints about value for money this summer, Mr Kelly also told colleagues he did not “in principle” like supporting tourism businesses that had used Fáilte Ireland’s work and the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine to charge prices that had caused “reputation damage” to Ireland’s brand.
The Fáilte Ireland CEO suggested they could consider targeted marketing campaigns for accommodation that was willing to provide good deals for visitors.
He also said the tourism agency would not have a “better chance to spread the love” to lesser-visited counties like Carlow, Monaghan, Tipperary, Roscommon, and others.
Mr Kelly said in emails early this summer that the most popular tourism locations were “pretty full” but that Fáilte Ireland had budget available for marketing other places.
The message said: “Is [there an] opportunity in this availability crisis to put these places on the domestic tourism map? Should we be pivoting to highly targeted campaigns for these areas.”
Mr Kelly also queried how Fáilte Ireland’s training on revenue management for accommodation providers worked and what advice was given.
“The last thing I want is someone to say ‘sure Fáilte Ireland trained us to jack up the prices to really high levels when there’s a big match [or] concert on,” he said.
The Fáilte Ireland boss suggested putting a call out to accommodation providers who were willing to offer rates of less than €150 bed and breakfast through July or August, or €199 if dinner was included.
He said: “This is us actively supporting people offering value for money. Maybe even set up a last minute offers section on homepage of [Discover Ireland website] where good value offers that meet our criteria are used to fill [the] last few rooms with a few days to go and we promote this strongly.”
In another email on protecting Ireland’s brand as a destination, he said Fáilte Ireland probably had more power than they thought.
He wondered if they could set a maximum recommended price for four star and three star hotels or guesthouses, and perhaps for hostels.
Mr Kelly wrote: “All accommodation are free to put a higher max on their scale of charge than we recommend and still register - but if they do they are allowed register but are not allowed qualify or benefit from … support [from government, Fáilte Ireland, or Tourism Ireland].”
The CEO said on principle he did not “like supporting businesses that use the demand-driving work we and others do, combined with the humanitarian issues, to charge customers last available room prices that lead to Ireland brand reputation damage”.
He suggested setting the maximum recommended price based on peak rates that applied in other European cities.
“So the sector can still be very attractive to investors,” he wrote, “but we just stop the silly stuff on compression [extremely high demand] nights.”
In another email to colleagues, Mr Kelly asked about an older practice whereby hotels used to display maximum rates on the back of room doors.
He asked for a briefing on what powers Fáilte Ireland actually had to help encourage accommodation providers to offer better value for money.
In the email, he wrote: “We are going to be under pressure to be doing all we can in this area and we need to be fully aware of what we can do [or] have done in the past etc.”
Mr Kelly also suggested that Fáilte Ireland use the opening of a funding scheme for the tourism sector to remind hotels and guesthouses of where the money was coming from.
He wrote: “We also need to remind them somewhere in the letter that this support, like all Fáilte Ireland and any future support, is only possible because of government support for the sector.
“Can we do this - I worry particularly after today - that if we don’t do something strong we will be lambasted when this funding goes out and saying it’s for last year won’t be enough on its own.”
Asked about the records, a spokesperson for Fáilte Ireland said their CEO had been particularly vocal on value for money issues in the tourism sector.
They said Mr Kelly had put forward a number of proposals in discussions with colleagues on how Fáilte Ireland could address complaints about high prices for visitors.
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