The new chairman of Bord Failte, Mr Mark Mortell, is taking over at a critical time for the future of the tourism industry. While the results for 1996 show that earnings from tourism rose by 12 per cent to £1.45 billion, some cautionary notes need to be sounded. The growth was fuelled in particular by buoyant economies in the United States and Britain, welcome factors of course but ones over which neither Mr Mortell nor the relentlessly upbeat Minister for Tourism and Trade, Mr Kenny, have the slightest control. This newspaper has argued often that success or failure in tourism depends to an extraordinary, degree on conditions outside the industry's ability to influence. To that extent, it is vulnerable and setting targets for it, whether in terms of revenue or employment, are essentially aspirational and should be regarded as such.
The real success of 1996 was the growth in Ireland's share of the tourism market. The average rate of tourism growth in Europe was 3 per cent but Ireland managed 12 per cent. That must mean that both, "the product and the price have come into a happy, confluence which attracted the customers. The price is" helped by our low inflation, but the product has been enhanced to a large extent by EU grant assistance which is due to end or be reduced by 1999. An astonishing £1 billion has been invested in Irish tourism in recent years. Such investment is unthinkable after 1999, and yet current policy thinking has tourism contributing growth on a scale that was under pinned by EU funding which will no longer be available.
It is worrying that this contradiction is not the subject of political debate. Though the Government parties revel in announcing record tourism revenue, the Opposition is silent in raising the longer term issues. Few people will be aware, for example, that the Fianna Fail spokesman on tourism is Mr David Andrews or whether that party is alert to the difficulties lying ahead for the industry.
The chairman of the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation, Mr Eamonn McKeon, said last week that much more consultation and discussion should be taking place with the industry into the funding structures that will be necessary when EU funds at their current levels diminish after 1999. If Mr McKeon is correct, it is remarkable that such consultation is not taking place. The Government is enthusiastically announcing that it expects foreign earnings from tourism to grow by 65 per cent to £2.25 billion by 1999 and yet the industry's umbrella body does not know how this is to come about. Surely, an ominous communications gap exists here.
Mr McKeon raises a number of other issues which will affect the industry's ability to meet the targets set for it. Not least is the growth in competition. Internationally, tourism is viewed as a growth area and every country is accordingly keen to have a slice of the action. More resources are being poured into marketing old and new destinations. Spain, for example, has appealed successfully to be regarded as more than a littoral of beach resorts and has attracted tourists to its cultural heritage. Scotland, a much closer competitor to Ireland, sells its green environment to European markets with the same come hither appeal as Ireland does.
Marketing is an expensive business and this is the nub of Mr McKeon's case. The EU's support will lessen by 1999 and Mr Kenny has said that the Irish tourist industry should be responsible for more of the costs of marketing itself. In theory, any industry should not look to the taxpayer for financial support. In practice, the Government has set targets for the tourist industry which are beyond reach unless it is prepared to back up its aspirations with hard cash. That, in many ways, is Mr Mortell's biggest challenge.