Thursday, 15th
December 2016
info@eastcorkjournal.ie
Cobh to Cash in on Chinese Tourism
by SEAMUS WHELEHAN
Cobh Municipality are hoping to cash in on Ire- land’s new found friend- ship with China. At the December sitting
of the borough the coun- cillors approved a €4,000 grant to help
the island
prepare for a possible in- flux of tourists. Cobh Heritage Centre, ambassadors,
welcome
and individual tourist in- terests will be among 25 people that will be funded to attend a Chinese Tour- ist Welcome accreditation course.
Labour Councillor Ca- thal Rasmussen who pro-
posed funding the project said Cobh and Great Is- land Opening up to Chi- nese tourism was a step in the right direction and in line with the areas tourism strategy. He said Cobh should
prepare for this new mar- ket as the requirements of Chinese tourists were dif- ferent to European ones. “The idea is
to attract
Chinese to Cobh and pre- pare business in Cobh for them” Fine
Gael Councillor
Sinead Sheppard said “it is a small amount of money for what could be a big investment in the long run.”
Independent Council-
lor Kieran McCarthy said “when you look at the Chi- nese coming here Cobh doesn’t
feature on their
list. If they don’t come to Cobh they will go to Kin- sale we need to work away and play our part in be- coming the tourist capital of Cork.” Our relationship with
the Asian country has the potential to bring thou- sands of tourists here, raising
the need for the
removal of language bar- riers. Hendrick Verwey of Cobh Tourism said “with Chinese peak travel times coinciding with Ireland’s off peak tourist season the potential is phenomenal.”
Last year 120 million Chinese travelled overseas making the country the biggest
outbound travel market globally. In 2015 45,000 visited
Ireland with Fáilte Ireland expecting to exceed that figure in 2017. According to research
carried out by consultants Oxford Economics and Visa, Chinese
travellers
will spend more than their German, French and UK counterparts by 2025. Labour Councillor Ca-
thal Rasmussen said the town needed to do what it could to capitalise on China which is the world’s biggest spender on foreign tourism.
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