Published: Wednesday, 27th January, 2010 5:00pm

No Cavan show at Holiday World Fair

by Sean McMahon

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There were no Cavan stands at the Holiday World Show at the RDS Simmonscourt complex last weekend for the first time in the history of the fair.

Joanne Hayes, Cavan Tourism Officer, confirmed to The Anglo-Celt this week that Cavan Tourism did not attend the show this year due to financial constraints and the fact that it costs a considerable amount of money to have a stand there for three or four days. There is also the additional expense of staffing such a stand for the entire duration of the show.

The Cavan Tourism budget has been cut by ten per cent and the money is coming out of core funding in the county council. Joanne Hayes pointed out that the Cavan Tourism information about Cavan would have been available to visitors to the show at the Fáilte Ireland stand under the North West banner.

"I had to cut various things out of our budget this year and I felt that attending the Holiday World Show was one of the things that could be sacrificed," said Ms. Hayes.

She pointed to further costs associated with the event such as accommodation, travel and courier charges for transporting the information and other items required at the stands. "For the money it costs, we felt it would not give us the return on the investment that we would require," said Ms. Hayes.

There appears to have been no show from tourism bodies in Monaghan, Leitrim or Longford either and some industry sources told The Anglo-Celt that the return for investment at such an event is now questionable.

The show is designed to provide holiday options for every budget. In press releases issued prior to the show, the organisers pointed out the event offered an opportunity to meet experts who have first hand experience of every type of holiday and location.

Joanne Hayes says that a lot of people are doing their research for holidays online. "We felt this year that would be preferable to invest in our new County Tourism website and spend the money on that."

The website will be up and running in the coming weeks and will be known as www.cavantourism.com.

When asked if it would not have been an opportune event to highlight the all-Ireland Fleadh Ceoil coming to Cavan, Ms. Hayes pointed out that the Fleadh will be showcased in a major way at the Trad Fest in Temple Bar this weekend. "We felt that the market at this event will be a lot more in tune with the Fleadh event."

The news releases are now ready in respect of the fleadh and the website has been launched and the local launch in can will take place in February. There will also be a national launch of the Fleadh in April.