Key venues selected for redevelopment in order to attract international business events.
Five venues around Ireland will be re-developed to make them venues of scale to attract gala dinner events and meet international demand.
Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media Catherine Martin, TD, and Fáilte Ireland have confirmed a €1m investment through the Platforms for Growth Gala Dinner Venues Investment Scheme.
“Business event delegates inject approximately three times more revenue into local economies than leisure travellers”
The venues include: Claregalway Castle, Co Galway; the Custom House Quarter/Epic Irish Emigration Museum at CHQ in Dublin; Killarney Brewing & Distilling Visitors Experience in Kerry; Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Limerick; and St Nicolas’ Collegiate Church in Galway.
Dining with the ‘wow’ factor
Killarney Brewing & Distilling Visitors Experience in Kerry
Gala dinners are a key component of international conferences, incentive trips, and large corporate meetings and Ireland’s current gala dinner venue offering is not sufficient to deal with demand.
This investment will go towards the development and enhancement of the venues, to enable them to compete to win international business events for Ireland.
It is estimated that €67m worth of incremental business events could be delivered for the country over a 5-year period on the back of this investment.
“Business event delegates inject approximately three times more revenue into local economies than leisure travellers,” said Paul Kelly, CEO of Fáilte Ireland.
“Business events also benefit the wider tourism ecosystem by driving high-yield business often during mid-week and off-season periods, complementing leisure tourism patterns. The overall objective of this focused capital investment scheme is to facilitate the development of ‘wow’ gala dinner venues of scale in Ireland’s premier business events hubs. We were encouraged to see the calibre of applicants and we are pleased that the five awarded projects will add truly best-in-class venues to the Irish venue portfolio.”
St Nicolas’ Collegiate Church in Galway
The Gala Dinner Venues Investment Scheme is a part of Fáilte Ireland’s €150 million Platforms for Growth Programme, which falls under the Government’s Project Ireland 2040 strategy. The Platforms for Growth Programme targets projects that have the greatest potential to grow tourism throughout the year.
The selection of the five venues marks the culmination of a competitive application process which began in 2022. The projects receiving investment were strategically selected under strict eligibility criteria, including an ability to deliver not only on capacity (350 diners for Dublin venues and 250 diners for venues in regional Ireland) but also on accessibility, in terms of their proximity to one of Ireland’s business events hubs.
The venues were also required to deliver on the ‘wow’ factor, which means they had to offer an exceptional venue, in a spectacular location, which would instantly appeal to an international audience. The selected venues will be required to adhere to and promote sustainability best practice in the operation of the venue and should support the business events industry to deliver events complying with best practice environmental sustainability measures.
Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Limerick
Minister Catherine Martin said: “The business events industry is a key component of Ireland’s tourism offering and driver of economic benefit for Ireland, with an estimated contribution of almost €800 million to our economy and supporting 20,000 jobs. Today’s investment announcement will ensure world-class venues are developed that will attract international business events to our key business events hubs. This events is critical to strengthening Ireland’s reputation internationally as a leading business events destination and will have far reaching impact on Ireland’s tourism sector and the wider Irish economy.”
Main image at top: Epic Irish Emigration Museum at CHQ in the Docklands, Dublin.
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