When considering Sustainable Tourism Destination Development there are two key questions you need to answer:

1. Who is it for?
2. What is it for?

You must carefully choose the sort of tourist that you want, and how many of visitors you would like to serve. When it comes to measuring tourism success, there is often an over-estimation of the value placed on visitor numbers. This is a common mistake, and it has led to significant problems from over-tourism in Ireland and elsewhere, particularly cities like Venice, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Prague. The exponential growth in visitor numbers causes issues like over-demand on services, overcrowding at key locations, traffic and parking management issues and it can drive people out of the locality as short-term letting takes over landscapes. All of these factors can lead to an angry backlash from communities pushed beyond the limit.

So what is the alternative? To us, it is pretty clear. Rather than top-down tourism that always seeks to create new attractions and expensive installations, the focus should go on the local communities. Our philosophy is a very simple one:

If you make it a good place to live, you’ll make it a great place to visit.

Tourism that doesn’t take the needs of stakeholders, communities and the environment into account are doomed from the outset. There should also be a careful consideration of the type of tourist that you want to attract. In recent years, what we would call an ‘InstaTourist’ has become more common – someone who drives a hire-car or gets on a coach in Dublin, then travels hundreds of miles across the country just to get a selfie at an iconic place, then gets back on the bus and is whisked away again. On paper, getting coach loads of this type of visitor looks terrific as the numbers keep increasing, but volume does not equate to value when it comes to sustainable tourism.

Would you rather have 100,000 visitors who spend on average €5 per day per person,
or 25,000 visitors who spend on average €100 per day per person?

Measuring value rather than volume helps to create a sustainable tourism model, one that focuses on developing sustainable trails, empowering local communities with training and facilitation and developing a meaningful tourism brand for your area. And we can help you with every step of that journey. From identifying what it is that makes your locality special, to looking at engagement with landowners and the community to develop sustainable trails, to engaging with local authorities and key stakeholders. It is not an easy road, and genuine consultation is essential for truly sustainable tourism destination development. But at the end of the journey there is will be a tourism product that is rooted in meaning for visitors and the local community alike.

We guarantee that we will always go the extra mile to help you to develop the foundations for sustainable tourism destination development by working to assess, understand and highlight the heritage of your area. We will also develop pragmatic and sensible management plans that are informed by best-practice in conservation and biodiversity.