Increased Tourism?

markan · Senior Member

Increased Tourism?

Itallian Chauffeur · Moderator

The Irish Tourism folks have worked hard at making a 2016 trip to Ireland a desirable choice. They seem to really be pushing the Easter Rising centennial with lots of events and activities.

Coming on the heels of Game of Thrones generated interest, the wildly successful 'Wild Atlantic Way' and the 'Jump Into Ireland' campaigns (and the gradual economic improvement, world-wide) have made Ireland an ever more desirable destination.

Something we've known -- all along! biggrin

tony2phones · Guru

Not sure where you are looking at, Bank Holiday isn't until 6th June but there could be clashes with Festivals? Ennis for example has the Fledh Nua from the 22nd to 30th May (although those dates have not yet been made public ).

And of course its always possible that some places are not setting prices therefore selling rooms just yet. call me cynical but knowing that the Euro is low against $ & £ some places might be planning to increase their prices next year and still look cheaper than last year evileye

Michele Erdvig · Host

Tourism has increased this year in Ireland. As Bob mentioned Tourism Ireland is really publicizing and next year is the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising.

Now, I have a question for you. Are you using booking engines or emailing for reservations? I find that booking engines near the end of the year sometimes do not reflect availability till after the 1st of the next year. And as Tony said there are many festivals so that might be the case where you are booking too.

I was in Ireland in October and my problem was things beginning to close down including B&Bs.

Here is more info about numbers:

Tourism Ireland
Irish Times

markan · Senior Member

Thanks for the feedback everyone! The itinerary is roughly as follows after landing in Shannon:

May 24th and 25th Clifden
May 26th, 27th, 28th Westport
May 29th and 30th Galway City
May 31st, June 1st somewhere in County Clare (TBD) - considering Ennis, Ballyvaughn, Lisdoonvarna, and even Doolin.

I've managed to make reservations that I've needed so far for the first three stops so it's not become a problem. I just noticed though in doing so how many places are already sold out.

I hadn't considered that maybe they are just not making places fully available right now until after the 1st of the year. I've been using a combination of a booking engine (booking.com) and also direct websites. Tony2Phones made a good point as well that with the exchange rate being so favorable right now they may be holding off so they can put in price increases after the 1st. I hadn't thought of that but it seems plausible.

markan · Senior Member

"Tourism has increased this year in Ireland. As Bob mentioned Tourism Ireland is really publicizing and next year is the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising."

Striking while the iron is hot I suppose. We've not seen exchange rates this favorable to Americans travelling to Europe in a long time and you add the much improved economy in the US to the mix and it's a perfect storm to increase tourism. I think the last few times I've been to Ireland the USD to Euro exchange rate was somewhere in .72-.78 range. Looking just this morning at the exchange rate is up to .93! That's a lot of extra money for me to spend in pubs over there!

I'm excited to check in on the fairly new Mescan Brewery while in Westport (www.facebook.com/Mescan-Brewery-228600377304798/). I'll give a full report. Also hopefully the "Grainne-ale" craft beer festival is on at the Westport House the weekend we're there (one can dream): piratequeenfestival.ie/events/grainne-ale

tony2phones · Guru

I'd have had 3 for Clifden and 2 for Westport but that's personal preference, Pity you'l miss the Connemara Mussel festival on the 28th May.
Ennis always gets my vote for a great Touring base for Clare.

Michele Erdvig · Host

A note about booking.com. B&Bs can add or delete rooms to that booking engine at will. If they think they will fill up from their own website they may delete them from booking.com and it will show no availability there.

Itallian Chauffeur · Moderator

Never even factored THIS into the equation!

http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/entertainment/Ireland-expecting-record-8-million-tourists-for-2016-thanks-to-Star-Wars.html

Roy · Guru

Looking ahead, prices for July and August are certainly higher than May and June. Not unusual or anything, maybe I was surprised by the difference in airfare. I was somewhat shocked by the exchange rate for the pound sterling, enough to be put off on staying in Northern Ireland as supposed to one or two day trips. It should be an interesting year for tourism.

balinaraw · Member

I have found that the best way to get the best response from B&Bs and hotels is to call them. My US land line is with a major carrier and the cost per minute to Ireland is $0.04. Try and schedule your call for B&Bs in the late afternoon or evening local time in Ireland. You can usually catch the proprietor home then. They will check their 'book' and if available you can book it right then. They usually ask for a credit card to make sure you're you are serious but don't charge the card. You pay them when you arrive in euros. If you are nervous prepay it. For hotels call between 10:00A and 4:00P local Ireland time and ask for 'reservations' where they will give you availability right then and the same procedure of giving a credit card. Now the hotel may have a special offer so you may wish to ask about that. If so they may require prepayment to guarantee it. Booking engines really put the screws to B&Bs and Hotels demanding high commissions and fees from them. I don't blame the B&Bs from shutting out availability if they can fill it themselves. Hope that helps.

-- Edited by balinaraw on Sunday 17th of January 2016 08:58:31 AM

-- Edited by balinaraw on Sunday 17th of January 2016 08:59:08 AM

Roy · Guru

I agree about the high booking overhead, especially for B&B's. I try to book direct.

markan · Senior Member

Yeah I can see how with B&B's direct communication is best. I generally stay in hotels and not B&B's though and it's all hotels on this trip. I don't think with most hotels it really matters all that much. I find using Booking.com a convenient tool for booking hotels and found that they had the same availability this time around as the booking direct on the hotel websites. I assume these hotels are fairly well run (having stayed in them before it seems that they are) and have factored in booking engine commissions into their cost of doing business. Besides they'll capture a fairly good amount of additional business from me for food and drinks at their pubs. Never had a problem using booking.com with any of them at any rate.

Roy · Guru

Michele Erdvig wrote:
A note about booking.com. B&Bs can add or delete rooms to that booking engine at will. If they think they will fill up from their own website they may delete them from booking.com and it will show no availability there.

I try to avoid agents such as booking.com. I have found B&B's more willing to give me a discount for staying multiple nights when they aren't paying a third party commission.

Michele Erdvig · Host

Keep in mind the difference between hotels and B&Bs. Hotels with hundreds of rooms can absorb the commissions better where the same commission for B&Bs with maybe 4 or 5 rooms seems a much higher percentage of the bottom line even though both pay the same commission. It is like comparing Walmart with a small boutique.

Roy · Guru

The booking agents seem to be a fairly new trend with B&Bs? It's unfortunate but perhaps necessary. Most people probably don't circumvent them and contact the B&B directly I suppose. I don't remember ever using them before.

tony2phones · Guru

Many B&B's historically kept busy by word of mouth and repeat business unfortunately in this day and age advertising and web presence is an essential expense. Unfortunately small B&B sites like Gulliver and a couple of others that we used to use have been bought out by the likes of B&B Ireland.

The other new invent is AirB&B which anyone can advertise their spare room on. Some are genuine B&B's some are most likely really good but many are unknown quantities and lots are under the watchful eye not of Failte Ireland but the Irish Tax man..

markan · Senior Member

I totally agree with you Roy about how you go about booking a B&B. Absolutely if I were going to stay multiple nights in a B&B I'd contact them direct. I've never booked a B&B through booking.com or the like. Then again I rarely stay in a B&B so it's probably a moot point.

I will say though that there is some real value for the consumer to using a service like booking.com and the reasons below are primarily why I use that service:

1. It allows you to scan an entire area on a map to see what is available in the town/region/city that you are trying to stay in. So for a person who is not very familiar with an area it allows them to at a high level overview see what is possible on a map and be able to determine walking distances, exact location, etc.

2. Reviews: While you're perusing through your map you can see review scores and read reviews from other tourists about the places. It has other handy features as well like being able to sort by review scores, price, distance from center, etc.

3. You can keep your profile so you're not having to constantly retype your information (including CC info) every time you book a hotel. Just log in, select your place, and click reserve. Super easy once your setup on there. For someone like me that travels a lot both for work and pleasure this alone saves me a ton of time and aggravation.

4. Record Keeping: The ability to login and review everywhere you've booked in order by date is very handy. I can login right now and see every hotel I've got lined up in the order of my stay and this is a nice sanity check in knowing that I've got everything covered. This is a big deal to me because just next April through June alone I'm visiting Germany, Prague, Germany again, Ireland in May, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, and Ghent in June. So just being able to login and double check that all my reservations are in order help me sleep at night.

As a curious side note, I know a few hotels in Germany that do all their booking through this service and have literally shut down their own online booking page. So every online reservation they get comes from there. I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see more of this in the future.

I'm not trying to promote booking.com on here I'm just saying that if the service it provided didn't add value to the consumer then I and others wouldn't use it. I really don't see it as an unfortunate trend from a consumer viewpoint at least. I am also sure that the commission cost to the hotel is somewhat offset by the service cutting down on their administration and sales cost. I'd be willing to bet that the Wyatt Hotel in Westport, for example, has gotten a lot more market awareness because people have found them through a booking engine that might not have otherwise and has a reduction in hidden Admin costs because the service delivers them all the info they need in a handy format to make reservations (as opposed to having to field email and phone inquiries).

But I definitely can see how for a small B&B owner that having to pay a booking engine a commission as being a problem. I'd be curious to know what B&B owners have to say about all this. I have noticed in the last few years B&B's starting showing up on the booking engines and that made me curious. Almost seems to take away some of the personal nature that makes B&B's appealing to some.

Sorry for the long winded post. To me it's an interesting discussion about how travel planning has changed over the years.

murphy · Guru

I agree with the notion that everybody expresses above. It appears to me tourism is even going to be up into the fall shoulder season as well.
I was on the computer trying to arrange lodging for 5 adults for our trip this fall starting Sept 28. My standby lodging, "Murphys B&B" only had 5 twin rooms left (out of approx 25). I was looking for a double and a triple.
I also always do my preliminary research on booking.com. So I went straight to Murphys web sight, and sure enough! They are similar. Granted I wanted 7 nights, in a row, so not sure if there is a weekend in there that is unusually busy...... And the price was definitely higher than when we stayed there in October of 2014.
I ended up booking an apartment right around the corner just so we have SOMETHING nailed down. We Can cancel with "0" penalty up to one week before.
My advise? Don't wait too long to secure lodgings. And if you want to wing it? This may not be the year! I definitely don't want to spend my time in Ireland "looking" for lodging!
Regards
Dan

Roy · Guru

I agree that it makes sense for hotels to book this way, though I might use it as a screening tool, similar to Trip Advisor. Then again, I rarely book airfare through a travel search engine, instead using them as a screening tool then looking at the airline's website. The only exception has been domestic travel, where I have booked air, hotel, & car rental as a package and saved.

We rarely stay in hotels in Ireland and will be while in Dublin at the beginning & end of this years trip. Unfortunately my sister in law is renting her house out in Whitehall so it's not available to us this year.

Roy · Guru

murphy wrote:
I agree with the notion that everybody expresses above. It appears to me tourism is even going to be up into the fall shoulder season as well.
I was on the computer trying to arrange lodging for 5 adults for our trip this fall starting Sept 28. My standby lodging, "Murphys B&B" only had 5 twin rooms left (out of approx 25). I was looking for a double and a triple.
I also always do my preliminary research on booking.com. So I went straight to Murphys web sight, and sure enough! They are similar. Granted I wanted 7 nights, in a row, so not sure if there is a weekend in there that is unusually busy...... And the price was definitely higher than when we stayed there in October of 2014.
I ended up booking an apartment right around the corner just so we have SOMETHING nailed down. We Can cancel with "0" penalty up to one week before.
My advise? Don't wait too long to secure lodgings. And if you want to wing it? This may not be the year! I definitely don't want to spend my time in Ireland "looking" for lodging!
Regards
Dan

I wonder if there's a wedding. I've never found Ireland as a place that doesn't benefit from advance planning. Not sure what to say about the price increase. It looks to me like B&Bs have gone up some while hotel costs overall have come down.