Pictures: Don MacMonagle
THE development of greenways, such as the projectfrom Tralee to Fenit, is the way forward for sustainable tourism in Kerry and other parts of Ireland, Kerry TD and Minister of State for Tourism, Brendan Griffin, has insisted.
He said an additional €4.5 million was provided in the Budget for the greenways network and that was in addition to the €23.5 million previously secured to be spent before 2020.
The money would be spent on creating new projects and advancing existing developments, he told delegates at the Let’s Talk Tourism forum in Killarney.
“These are great opportunities for all of us and they really tie in with the theme of sustainability.
“With our old canals and our old railways, we have these marvellous gifts from the past that previous generations sweated blood and tears to put in place and we owe it to those people to make the most of those brilliant pieces of infrastructure, many of them from the 19th century and Victorian times,” Minister Griffin said.
“We must make the most of it for future generations and that epitomises sustainability. In one action, we can turn what are seen as symbols of decline and negativity and economic depression into opportunities for the current and future generations”.
The Kerry TD said he is trying to secure as much funding as possible for the development of greenways.
“My vision for this country is that we will have an integrated network of greenways all over the island, starting here in Kerry of course,” he said.
“We must ensure that we have them linked up so that someone can literally get off a plane, rent a bike and never have to get into a car or a bus or anything else while they’re here”.
Rising tourism numbers bring new challenges
WHILE tourism has brought many great opportunities, it has also created several new challenges that need to be addressed, particularly in terms of sustainable and inclusive growth, the Let’s Talk Tourism conference was told.
Jane Stacey, Head of the OECE Tourism Unit, said the continued growth being experienced is creating pressures on infrastructure, the environment, local communities and the wider society.
“Innovative policy solutions are required to better manage tourism development in the coming decades,” she said.
Ms Stacey said there is a requirement to diversity and diffuse the benefits of tourism, temporally and spatially, and to counteract the pressures on residents in destinations experiencing significant tourism inflows.
With air passenger traffic expected to reach 7.2 billion by 2035, road and rail passenger numbers likely to rise by 230% by 2050 and cruise passengers expected to spiral from 22 million to 30 million by 2024, there is also a need to create greater positive spill-over impacts for the wider community and develop crisis management strategies, Ms Stacey said.
At the Let’s Talk Tourism forum, 22 hotels in Killarney signed a novel sustainability charter as a core principle of their business with an initial aim of cutting their carbon emissions by 25 per cent.
The pact, the first of its kind in the hotel industry in Ireland, is aimed at the implementation and operation of a single use plastic free environment in their respective businesses which account for 2,500 of the 3,500 hotel bedrooms in the town.
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