A group of Sport for Business members engaged in areas of sport and tourism will meet at Croke Park today.
We will consider ways that the communication of support for events from state agencies can be better delivered to sports, promoters and other groups so that Ireland can step up its efforts to become a major player in the global sports tourism market.
We learned at the Shannon Airport European Sport Tourism Summit earlier this year that the global market in sports tourism is worth around €450 million and growing faster than any other sector at a rate of 14% per annum.
Ireland though has been ranked outside the top 50 markets for sports tourism which given the strength of sport here, and the geographic attraction for hosting running, cycling, surfing, sailing and triathlon events can certainly be seen as underperformance.
Irish Rugby has won the right to host the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2017 and is bidding to bring the main event in the Men’s game here in 2023.
The UEFA European Championship Finals will be coming to Dublin for four games in 2020.
Both the Dublin City Marathon and the Rock ‘n Roll half Marathon are switching from Bank Holiday Mondays to Sundays in 2016 to attract more overseas tourism. The latter event published data last week which showed it produced economic value of €5.9 million for Ireland last year.
A report by W2 Consulting published on Sport for Business last month indicated that the economic impact of the top 12 mass participation events held here this year was €46.6 million bringing in over 100,000 participants and supporters and generating 95,133 bed nights.
There is a lot to be gained if Ireland gets this right. Today’s meeting will be one step on the road to getting everybody looking and moving in the right direction.
