Meitheal 2016 – Irish Tourism Workshops
Meitheal 2016 at the RDS [credit: Iain White/Fennell Photography]
Every year Tourism Ireland and Fáilte Ireland showcase Ireland to overseas tour operators. This year over 13,000 business meetings took place. International buyers from China, Canada, Australia, Germany, France Great Britain, New Zealand and the U.S. attended.
Dublin was the venue this year and the anticipation and enthusiasm that abounded the RDS was palpable. On behalf of the Adare Heritage Centre I present all the facilities and rates that are available at the Centre, and attend this event every two years.
I always enjoy this part of my job as it is wonderful to connect with the trade and discuss the latest tourism developments for Ireland.
From my viewpoint this year’s event was especially effective as the responsibility was put on the product providers such as my company to make their appointments with tour operators. While this presented a challenge to ensure the business to business matches were relevant – the operation of ‘speed dating’ came to mind – but all in all the concept worked!
I understand that last year this revised format of the ‘speed dating’ was introduced, which allowed the product providers to sit at tables and the suppliers (tour operators) to visit the tables at appointed times, whereas before this procedure was the reverse.
I absolutely congratulate whoever was responsible for this change as I had one of the most effective workshops ever and I appreciated this new initiative.
Wishing everyone a very successful season and see you in Adare!