Growing tourism: Get your guests to plant potatoes...

The age-old practice of growing potatoes may be just the incentive needed to attract tourists to Ireland, a tourism conference heard yesterday.

The conference for hoteliers and B&B owners interested in attracting more visitors from Europe was told there were a number of “top tips” which had proven successful at making Ireland more attractive for holidaymakers.

Siobhán McManamy of conference organisers Tourism Ireland recounted how a specialist, upmarket property in Ireland’s Blue Book – a bible for lovers of Irish country and manor houses – had invited visitors to take part in planting their own “spuds”.

“Then months later when the spuds were ready the venue dug up the spuds and posted them off to the visitors,” said Ms McManamy.

She said the novel prospect of planting and eating food significantly helped to sell the holiday.

Ms McManamy also said a key tip would be to avail of the advice of Tourism Ireland on how to deal with international websites such as Tripadvisor and how to deal with reviews on that site.

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said the Irish may have a poor image of their prospects at the moment but to foreigners, particularly Europeans, Ireland was still one of the most interesting places to visit.

He said one-third of all visitors came from Europe and brought 36 per cent of all tourist revenues.

The conference was to have been closed with an address by Minister for Tourism Mary Hanafin, who was called away at the last minute.

In a message to the conference she said it provided enterprises with “a greater understanding of the various mainland European markets” while helping to plan growth for 2011.