Tourism for Waterford

looksee

Following on from the Waterford Crystal thread, there must be ideas that would boost tourism in Waterford. Once we get the Kilkenny road finished so we have decent access, and considering we have an amazing waterfront and accessible river there must be ways of boosting the tourist interest in Waterford.
One very inexpensive thing would be to promote the whole 'Viking triangle' area - just signage and imaginative leaflet/maps would be a good start. There is an amazing drawing of an artist's interpretation of the Viking village, hidden in the archive office in Hight Street that would make a great basis for the whole thing.
How about musical or historical 'pub crawls' which are very popular in Dublin.
How about a 'restaurant crawl' if only on week in the summer, where you have starter in one, main in another and dessert in a third.
What about a 'hire a guide' to show the interesting bits of Waterford, there are plenty of students available in the summer, even to do it on commission and tips.
There must be loads of ideas out there, maybe the Chamber of Commerce/City council could be encouraged to take an interest.

ziedth

i really like the restauraunt crawl idea.

Assuming we have little money to spend I've said before on a different thread that during the summer we should bring in some decent street acts/buskers over the weekends or whatever. I think a couple more festivels wouldn't go astray, sproai is great and all but its becoming an excuse foe people to go on a major bender.

foxylad

looksee wrote: »

Following on from the Waterford Crystal thread, there must be ideas that would boost tourism in Waterford. Once we get the Kilkenny road finished so we have decent access, and considering we have an amazing waterfront and accessible river there must be ways of boosting the tourist interest in Waterford.
One very inexpensive thing would be to promote the whole 'Viking triangle' area - just signage and imaginative leaflet/maps would be a good start. There is an amazing drawing of an artist's interpretation of the Viking village, hidden in the archive office in Hight Street that would make a great basis for the whole thing.
How about musical or historical 'pub crawls' which are very popular in Dublin.
How about a 'restaurant crawl' if only on week in the summer, where you have starter in one, main in another and dessert in a third.
What about a 'hire a guide' to show the interesting bits of Waterford, there are plenty of students available in the summer, even to do it on commission and tips.
There must be loads of ideas out there, maybe the Chamber of Commerce/City council could be encouraged to take an interest.

if we could get our hands on some images - get all businesses involved in Tourism - put up a web page on their site to promote the viking heritage, new Waterford Crystal, walking tours, medevial Waterford , the undercroft, Viking Longship, Waterford Treasures, etc etc

Pub Crawl would be cool - Downses, Ally Mcloughlins, T&H's, Gingerman, Jordans, quaint old places that say "olde Waterford"

Restaurant Crawl is a good idea - but might be boring - and logistically tough for Restaurants - food in pubs would be a lot easier!

IF ANYONE CAN GET IMAGES OF THE VIKING DEVOLOPMENT - LET ME KNOW - ILL START THE BALL ROLLING

wish list for me would be a "Viking Splash Tour" like the one in Dublin - i would courier it for free a few days week - volunteer basis - till its established.

Sully

This is something that I have wanted to do for some time - which I am currently in planning stages on. Tourism in Waterford, despite having a nice big Failte Ireland office here, is poorly promoted. We cant just bet on the crystal factory being the only pull - Waterford has a lot more to offer and we need to tell people that. People have read the news about the factory gone and people are now going elsewhere around Ireland. We need to pull them back and do it well and proper.

decies

The first thing to be done would be to keep Mr serial objector VERY VERY QUIET.

looksee

Again linking to a point in the Waterford Crystal thread, we need a campaign aimed at the locals - call it 'Love Waterford' or something similar, and try and convince all front line people to sell up the city. Put something a bit more uplifting than that miserable girl on the river. Defy the recession by having more rather than less street flower planting. Maybe have pins or stickers saying 'welcome to Waterford' that locals could put on their coats or cars.

One thing that could be done is develop a website showing walking route(s) of Waterford with all the tourist info in place, at the moment the historical stuff that is available already is in a piecemeal fashion. A simple website with clear maps that can be printed off, most try to do way too much and when advertising is thrown in as well it gets too complicated. Concise, easy to read entertaining outline of the history/story. There could be a Viking walk, an architecture route, an independence walk - there are several interesting bits of history relating to the war of independence. Print-offs could be available at the tourist office and individual signs at each site relating to the maps.
In other words, get organised!

byhookorbycrook

Get on tripadvisor and promote the things to do.

Sundew

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Get on tripadvisor and promote the things to do.

Actually Waterford is one of those counties that I never really see being promoted.
I visited about 3 years ago for the first time and was really impressed by the Waterford heritage Museum on the river. Can't remember the exact name however we were disappointed with places to eat on the Sunday we were there!
Keep planning to get down and explore the Comeragh Mountains.:)

nkay1985

Sundew wrote: »

Actually Waterford is one of those counties that I never really see being promoted.
I visited about 3 years ago for the first time and was really impressed by the Waterford heritage Museum on the river. Can't remember the exact name however we were disappointed with places to eat on the Sunday we were there!
Keep planning to get down and explore the Comeragh Mountains.:)

That'd be The Granary museum you visited. It's superb; one of the best of its kind in Ireland and has won multiple awards. You should take action on your plan - the Comeraghs and that whole area are really beautiful and very accessible.

Sundew

Thats the one NKay.....fab museum spent nearly 2 hrs in there!!!

looksee

'Get on tripadvisor and promote the things to do.'
In fact I have, and do.

Sundew

looksee wrote: »

'Get on tripadvisor and promote the things to do.'
In fact I have, and do.

Me too. One way of making a positive contribution to your local area . Tourists are more interested in finding out the unusual things to do instead of the usual Bord failte Claptrap that is often peddled in brochures!

Psychedelic

Waterford-Dublin Motorway will be completed soon so expect a lot of marketing of the city as a tourist/shopping destination from the various organisations promoting the city, both locally and nationally.

There has already been huge strides made towards coming up with new ideas to capitalise on our tourism potential. One example was the recent 'Waterford Bright Ideas' campaign. Last month Failte Ireland and other local interests had a big meeting about developing tourism here. Have a read about that here: http://www.munster-express.ie/opinion/editorial/destination-waterford-city/