IRELAND BASKS IN RYDER CUP AFTERGLOW

UNCLAS DUBLIN 001118

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON PREL SOCI EI
SUBJECT: IRELAND BASKS IN RYDER CUP AFTERGLOW


1. Ireland is basking this week in the success of the
September 22-24 Ryder Cup golf tournament held outside
Dublin, an event that brought unprecedented international
exposure to the country as a tourist destination and economic
success. According to Failte Ireland, the state tourism
agency, the match's television broadcast was available to 1.3
billion people worldwide, and 50-75,000 foreigners visited
the K Club tournament venue and Dublin during the weekend.
Roughly half of the visitors were U.S. citizens, including a
number of high-profile personages, such as former Presidents
Bush and Clinton, and Michael Jordan. Based on early
figures, Failte Ireland estimates that the tournament
generated euro 130 million, taking into account earnings
primarily from restaurants, hotels, pubs, public transport,
merchandisers, and air carriers. The sum represents a huge
windfall on the euro 4.5 million in Irish exchequer funds
that were used to secure the event in 1998 with Ryder Cup LTD
(a combination of the European and U.S. PGA organizations)
and the euro 9 million that Failte Ireland and select Irish
company sponsors spent on the event this year.


2. More than a golf match, the Ryder Cup was an opportunity
to showcase Ireland as a "fully matured, economically
confident" travel destination that was capable of hosting
major international events, Paul Keely, Failte Ireland
Director of Marketing, told Pol/Econ Chief on September 26.
Keely noted that, through the first six months of the year,
the number of visitors and the amount of tourism earnings
were up roughly 10 percent in both categories over the same
period in 2005. (Last year, there were approximately 7
million visits by foreign citizens to Ireland and euro 4.3
billion in total tourism/travel earnings.) The hope now,
said Keely, was to parlay global media coverage of the Ryder
Cup into a bigger bump over the next year for the
tourism/services industry, which employs approximately 11
percent of the Irish work force. As much as Ireland rooted
for the winning European Ryder Cup team, he quipped, a closer
match that would have held TV audiences through the final
Sunday would have been a bigger plus for Irish tourism.


3. Comment: Two-way tourism between the United States and
Ireland, long fueled by family ties, has been one of the key
links in traditionally strong U.S.-Irish relations. Last
year, roughly one million U.S. citizens visited Ireland, an
astounding number for a country of only four million. The
graciousness of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, particularly captain
Tom Lehman, and of U.S. celebrities during a score of Ryder
Cup-related social events created a feel-good factor about
bilateral ties that has probably not been seen since the
immediate post-9/11 period. Ireland hopes that the event
will sustain if not increase the number of U.S. visitors,
particularly at a time when travel to more distant and
perceptibly exotic destinations becomes available to
Americans through the low-cost air service phenomenon.
KENNY