Offaly sites set to feature on American travel show

David Power

Offaly is to feature on a US travel show and has funding ringfenced to promote tourism in the county once Covid-19 lockdown restrictions are lifted.

Recently appointed director of services Stefan Duclot told the monthly meeting of Offaly County Council recently thatdespite the difficult year and regional and national lockdowns, Offaly had managed to increase its online presence and participate in online trade shows.

Offaly has in place a marketing plan for print, radio and social media for 2021.

Tourism officer Olive Farrelly said January had been a really positive with the RTE series coming the county in January, with filming for 6 weeks at 7 locations in the county. The weekly audience for that show if 440,000 viewers.

With the introduction of lockdown, Ms Farrelly said they saw it as an opportunity in March to see what could they do to “create more awareness and interest in local areas” through a local photography challenged.

A marketing campaign was launched in June on national radio on Today FM and Newstalk, marking the first time that they had collaborated with the other Midlands counties of Laois and Westmeath for a Midlands campaign to get people out about to spend money in their local community. “This was very successful and we would have seen this in our Google Analytics for the traffic that went to our website,” Ms Farrelly said.

“The traffic did really peak for the next two months, actually,” she said.

Nationwide was then secured to come down and film in July for a specific tourism projects on Offaly tourism alone, which aired on the 27th of July. This show has 250,000 viewers.

The Failte Ireland ‘Make a Break For It’ campaign launched in August and was due to run for 16 weeks. Offaly was included in Ireland’s East and Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands “but due to the lockdown we had to pull our exposure from those ads,” Ms Farrelly said.

“After we came out of our local lockdown, Failte Ireland did allocate a further €1million for a promotional campaign for the three lockdown counties alone – Laois, Offaly and Kildare. Not all that funding was spent in 2020 and we have had reassurances from Failte Ireland that that money is ringfenced for us, going forward, to be used in 2021 when we can do so,” Ms Farrelly added.

They are continuing to work on their social media presence and are up to nearly 13,000 followers on their three channels. “There was an increase of 22 per cent year on 2019 for 2020,” she said.

There were print advertising campaigns in the Sunday Business Post and local newspapers.

New marketing materials have been developed including a golf promotion brochure. A new A3 map of best things to see in Offaly has also been designed and a new outdoor recreation brochure is going to print this week.

Ireland’s Ancient East team has also launched a Laois Offaly visitor experience, centred around a collaboration of the two counties working in the Slieve Bloom area.

There is still a lot of uncertainty for 2021, Ms Farrelly said and plans are very ‘fluid’. The Visit Offaly website has been developed while five promotional videos for the county are almost ready for the third quarter of this year.

Visit Offaly is also working with a US magazine travel show with Offaly due to feature on their second show, and will be filmed within the next two months. “This is very important because we feel that the international market won’t come back this year but when it does come back our North American market will be our mainstay,” Ms Farrelly said.

Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands will also have a musical show along the Shannon featuring Sharon Shannon.

“In one of the most challenging years for tourism,” Cathaoirleach Cllr John Carroll said Ms Farrelly and the team had shown they weren’t idle.

“We have a huge product to sell and you are doing great work on it and I look forward to the new website and a new angle on all the tourism destinations. It has to be a destination, rather than a day’s trip to Offaly,” he said.