Things that cost €30 million

kippy

kceire wrote: »

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Well things have continued to go down the toilet internationally, so it seems like we won a larger slice of a smaller pie. We must have got some good advertising out there, great work Bord Failte!

Not only Bord Failte!
Dublin City Council has a Cruise Tourism Project ongoing throughout Europe, promoting Dublin as a cruis stop point, and so far this, there has been 84 Cruise Liners dock here for at least one day, next year already has over 70 bookings.

one day 2 weeks ago, 2750 people got off one boat and entered the City centre for the day!

http://urbact.eu/en/projects/port-cities/ctur/partner/?partnerid=261

What have the last few posts got to do with the 30+ million spent earlier in the year?

mike65

Much argument was had on various threads about the potential impact of tourist numbers by the Queens visit, some (the antis) said it would have no effect others said it might as it was huge international publicity. The visit was in early May the figures for May-July saw an increase that one might not expect given the state of the global economy.

kippy

mike65 wrote: »

Much argument was had on various threads about the potential impact of tourist numbers by the Queens visit, some (the antis) said it would have no effect others said it might as it was huge international publicity. The visit was in early May the figures for May-July saw an increase that one might not expect given the state of the global economy.

Mike,
What you have said there is exactly what I said would happen. People attributing a rise in tourism to these visits without actually knowing for sure why the rise took place. Why not attribute the rise to the fact that people generally holiday in those months,favourable currency prices,a drop in the costs of holidaying here, or more appropriately, the lack of an ash cloud........

mike65

Maybe that's the case.

Monty Burnz

kippy wrote: »

Mike,
What you have said there is exactly what I said would happen. People attributing a rise in tourism to these visits without actually knowing for sure why the rise took place. Why not attribute the rise to the fact that people generally holiday in those months,favourable currency prices,a drop in the costs of holidaying here, or more appropriately, the lack of an ash cloud........

I'm sure there were many factors, but it seems a tad churlish to list the factors that you like and omit another extremely likely factor from the list, doesn't it?

kippy

Monty Burnz wrote: »

kippy wrote: »

Mike,
What you have said there is exactly what I said would happen. People attributing a rise in tourism to these visits without actually knowing for sure why the rise took place. Why not attribute the rise to the fact that people generally holiday in those months,favourable currency prices,a drop in the costs of holidaying here, or more appropriately, the lack of an ash cloud........

I'm sure there were many factors, but it seems a tad churlish to list the factors that you like and omit another extremely likely factor from the list, doesn't it?

Why is it likely? Do you base your holiday plans on the trips of our own heads if State?

Monty Burnz

kippy wrote: »

Why is it likely? Do you base your holiday plans on the trips of our own heads if State?

Would you go on holiday to Greece right now? Would you be more likely to go of you saw lots of pictures of smiling and friendly Greeks meeting Liz and POTUSA in beautiful or interesting parts of Greece?

It's not rocket science.

kippy

Monty Burnz wrote: »

kippy wrote: »

Why is it likely? Do you base your holiday plans on the trips of our own heads if State?

Would you go on holiday to Greece right now? Would you be more likely to go of you saw lots of pictures of smiling and friendly Greeks meeting Liz and POTUSA in beautiful or interesting parts of Greece?

It's not rocket science.

I asked you did you base your holiday plans on the trips of heads of state of our own country?
I've never been to Greece. It has never appealed to me tbh.

Monty Burnz

kippy wrote: »

I asked you did you base your holiday plans on the trips of heads of state of our own country?
I've never been to Greece. It has never appealed to me tbh.

I don't and I imagine few people do. But do you think that's how advertising works? Do you think women buy Diet Coke because they expect a hot man to peel off his shirt outside the window? It's about creating positive associations.

I'm very interested in Greece, especially the historical aspect of the place and lifestyle on the islands. There isn't a hope in hell I'd go there in the next couple of years as it appears it's going down the plughole and I don't want to get stuck in the middle of it. Of course, that impression could be changed based on what I see in the media in the coming months.

Do you genuinely not accept the comparison?

thebman

kippy wrote: »

I asked you did you base your holiday plans on the trips of heads of state of our own country?
I've never been to Greece. It has never appealed to me tbh.

Lots of people go to the US each year. Our Taoiseach goes to the US every St.Patricks day.

kippy

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I don't and I imagine few people do. But do you think that's how advertising works? Do you think women buy Diet Coke because they expect a hot man to peel off his shirt outside the window? It's about creating positive associations.

I'm very interested in Greece, especially the historical aspect of the place and lifestyle on the islands. There isn't a hope in hell I'd go there in the next couple of years as it appears it's going down the plughole and I don't want to get stuck in the middle of it. Of course, that impression could be changed based on what I see in the media in the coming months.

Do you genuinely not accept the comparison?

You mean this kind of positive association?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq2dBBajD7g
http://www.herald.ie/news/courts/two-face-court-over-protests-at-queens-visit-2655364.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13449279
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/05/201151775435964943.html
National and international reports around the time of the visit.......
Similiar types of reports to what is putting you off Greece in fairness......

If you are that interested in Greece you really should visit them. I you need to see a head of state from your own country visit a place before you do then you've some issues.


I dont accept the comparison, no - why would I. If I spotted the Greeks spending 30+ million of someone elses money on security for two foreign dignataries while the money could be spent on a more solid/measurable return elsewhere I'd be asking questions, quite frankly.

kippy

thebman wrote: »

Lots of people go to the US each year. Our Taoiseach goes to the US every St.Patricks day.

I've been to the US about 4 times and I'll go back again.
You know why? The main reason has been the value of the dollar and what you can get over there for it, as well as numerous relations over there going back years.

kippy

By the way,
Just as a time line for this. The costs of these two visits started out pretty small:
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/eygbmhcwcwoj/ (8 MILLION just for the queens visit)
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0621/politics.html (20 million for combined visit)
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2011/0713/1224300655922.html (final tangible cost around 36 million, never mind the costs that cannot be measured easily)

At the end of the day the ACTUAL benefit to the country is very very difficult to measure. I have no doubt that some of the increase in tourism can be attributed to these visits, however much though is pure pie in the sky estimating and without taking into account the other, much more important factors in my opinion, is an attempt to justify the massive expenditure on both visits.

Monty Burnz

kippy wrote: »

You mean this kind of positive association?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq2dBBajD7g
http://www.herald.ie/news/courts/two-face-court-over-protests-at-queens-visit-2655364.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13449279
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/05/201151775435964943.html
National and international reports around the time of the visit.......
Similiar types of reports to what is putting you off Greece in fairness......

If you are that interested in Greece you really should visit them. I you need to see a head of state from your own country visit a place before you do then you've some issues.


I dont accept the comparison, no - why would I. If I spotted the Greeks spending 30+ million of someone elses money on security for two foreign dignataries while the money could be spent on a more solid/measurable return elsewhere I'd be asking questions, quite frankly.

Ok, you manage to find four negative reports by Googling 'queen ireland bomb' and 'obama ireland protest'. Great work. Two can play at that game:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/queen-elizabeth-II/8524575/The-Queen-in-Ireland-visit-hailed-a-great-success.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2011/may/19/queen-visit-ireland

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/queen-wraps-up-ireland-visit-hailed-as-a-success-20110520-1ew2k.html

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/queen-visits-croke-massacre-030448709.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/20/us-ireland-queen-idUSTRE74J4SY20110520

Just a few of the positive reports in English. Do you expect us to accept that the bad news stories exceeded the good news stories? Considering that the visits were universally hailed as a great success (outside An Phoblacht, not known as reading material for potential tourists), you might as well ask us to accept that there are fairies at the bottom of your garden.

I think not. I can see you are clearly arguing in bad faith. You know you are wrong, but you won't concede the point. That's fair enough I guess, but I think I've proved my point and I don't really have anything else to say on the subject.

thebman

kippy wrote: »

I've been to the US about 4 times and I'll go back again.
You know why? The main reason has been the value of the dollar and what you can get over there for it, as well as numerous relations over there going back years.

I imagine like many people, you might not go to the US if it was not for the waiver on Visas we get. We were exempt from them for years despite relatively high levels of illegal Irish immigrants in the US.

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/illegal.pdf
http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html#vwp

Our close political ties are part of this which is largely helped by our St.Patrick's day visit by the Taoiseach so you probably do go to the US because of such visits TBH.

You just don't realise it is part of the reason why you are going there because it is not obvious. There are plenty of other countries that we have good currency value against BTW.

kippy

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Ok, you manage to find four negative reports by Googling 'queen ireland bomb' and 'obama ireland protest'. Great work. Two can play at that game:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/queen-elizabeth-II/8524575/The-Queen-in-Ireland-visit-hailed-a-great-success.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2011/may/19/queen-visit-ireland

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/queen-wraps-up-ireland-visit-hailed-as-a-success-20110520-1ew2k.html

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/queen-visits-croke-massacre-030448709.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/20/us-ireland-queen-idUSTRE74J4SY20110520

Just a few of the positive reports in English. Do you expect us to accept that the bad news stories exceeded the good news stories? Considering that the visits were universally hailed as a great success (outside An Phoblacht, not known as reading material for potential tourists), you might as well ask us to accept that there are fairies at the bottom of your garden.

I think not. I can see you are clearly arguing in bad faith. You know you are wrong, but you won't concede the point. That's fair enough I guess, but I think I've proved my point and I don't really have anything else to say on the subject.

You made the point that it was all about positive association, I showed that it wasn't all positive and there were a few negative aspects that could show the country in a negative light depending on a few variables.



How I am wrong?
I'd love if you could prove to me that the increase in tourism numbers was as a direct result of both these visits and not as a combined result of a decrease in the cost of holidaying here, currency fluctuations, the ash cloud *year on year*, summer holiday season. But you very simply cannot, and NEITHER can the very bodies that come out with these reports.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0923/tourism.html
In fairness the ash cloud was mentioned in this report as something to be aware of.
What you, and others are saying on this thread now, is exactly what I said would happen.

Confused faces dont really make your points any more valid by the way.

kippy

thebman wrote: »

I imagine like many people, you might not go to the US if it was not for the waiver on Visas we get. We were exempt from them for years despite relatively high levels of illegal Irish immigrants in the US.

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/illegal.pdf
http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html#vwp

Our close political ties are part of this which is largely helped by our St.Patrick's day visit by the Taoiseach so you probably do go to the US because of such visits TBH.

You just don't realise it is part of the reason why you are going there because it is not obvious. There are plenty of other countries that we have good currency value against BTW.

You are potentially missing my main point.
Let me state it again.
It is not possible to attribute any rise in visitor numbers to this country (if any) to the spending of 36+ million on security for two foreign dignitaries and any attempt to do so without taking far more pertinent factors into account is just pie in the sky.

Now, back to your post?
Are you serious? You want to know why we have a visa waiver and you believe it's because our taoiseach goes to the US on Paddies? Nothing at all to do with the large second/third/fourth generation "Irish" in the states who are a pretty powerful group in themselves, including politicilly.
Now, Irish politicians like to think they have influence in the White House and no doubt probably took credit for this programme, in much the same way that they have taken credit for the reduction in interest rates on our bailout funds, but everyone knows if American presidents come here or assist the country in ways such as this, it's generally in an attempt to garner more votes from the "Irish" in the US. Maybe, I am a bit of a cynic..


Again, I dont go ANYWHERE because our heads of state have been there, I go for more pertinent reasons.
Currency value, value for money are two of the main reasons I go to the US, I have been to many countries by the way and again, NONE have been influenced by Mary or Endas trips there.

thebman

kippy wrote: »

You are potentially missing my main point.
Let me state it again.
It is not possible to attribute any rise in visitor numbers to this country (if any) to the spending of 36+ million on security for two foreign dignitaries and any attempt to do so without taking far more pertinent factors into account is just pie in the sky.

Now, back to your post?
Are you serious? You want to know why we have a visa waiver and you believe it's because our taoiseach goes to the US on Paddies? Nothing at all to do with the large second/third/fourth generation "Irish" in the states who are a pretty powerful group in themselves, including politicilly.

Again, I dont go ANYWHERE because our heads of state have been there, I go for more pertinent reasons.
Currency value, value for money are two of the main reasons I go to the US, I have been to many countries by the way and again, NONE have been influenced by Mary or Endas trips there.

So you are saying we would still have a visa waiver if the Taoiseach refused to go for St.Patrick's day essentially snubbing them and this would have no effect on tourism to either country?

kippy

thebman wrote: »

So you are saying we would still have a visa waiver if the Taoiseach refused to go for St.Patrick's day essentially snubbing them and this would have no effect on tourism to either country?

No. I am not saying that, you are, but If the taoiseach said that times were exceptionally tough here and we have to save a few squids I am sure it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to any Visa programme (I edited the previous post to clarify what I thought of the subject)

You are arguing with a lot of if's and buts here by the way which is pretty shaky ground, being honest.

Monty Burnz

kippy wrote: »

How I am wrong?

You argued that it would not recoup the costs in terms of increased tourism. Tourism has enjoyed a mini boom in the wake of the visits. I can't prove the exact amount of extra revenue that came in, but I will be applying Occam's Razor as is traditional when we are dealing with uncertain explanations.

You can throw all the waffle you like at it but it won't change the facts:

Visits were successful -> tourism mini boom ensues (contrary to your predictions)

kippy

Monty Burnz wrote: »

You argued that it would not recoup the costs in terms of increased tourism. Tourism has enjoyed a mini boom in the wake of the visits. I can't prove the exact amount of extra revenue that came in, but I will be applying Occam's Razor as is traditional when we are dealing with uncertain explanations.

You can throw all the waffle you like at it but it won't change the facts:

Visits were successful -> tourism mini boom ensues (contrary to your predictions)

For the record, my predictions on this thread (you can read them in cotext by going back a page or two

Personally, based on the amount of security, the cost and the lack of almost any commoner actually being within an asses roar of the queen, I'd have been happy if the whole visit (and indeed that of Obama) was kept on the down low and was something we only heard about after the fact.

The actual benefit to the country based on increased tourism is extremely intangible and almost impossible to back up/prove. Nowadays people have plenty access to view scenic shots of Ireland, nay every single street on the country via something like google street view/youtube/tripadvisor etc as well as the usual stuff that is on the TV before they come here. Years ago without the internet, people really only had TV to review a countries scenery and what it had to offer, so TV time and stuff like this was important in getting the visitors who had no link with the country to come here.
Ultimately we have to package the country as a cheap/friendly accessible country to tourists that has plenty cheap/accessible attractions, where you'll remain safe. I don't see how either visit will portray that notion.
Just remember, whatever about NOT effecting tourist figures from a positive standpoint if anything goes wrong on either standpoint it WILL put people off.


I for one have NEVER based my holiday choices on where the Taoiseach/President has visited - NEVER.






Look,
Trade missions, whatever you want to call them have a very specific target and I have no doubt, that done correctly, with the right people on it, targeting the right people, they are beneficial. Indeed the visit of BO and the Queen may have an impact on that level. I wouldn't argue with that in the slightest. Difficult enough to back up (ie you can say that this happened as a result of the trade mission but would it have happened anyway?) but I am specifically querying whether this TV time that Ireland will get as a result of the two visits coming up will have any tangible benefit in regards to tourism. I think the benefit to tourism is completely overstated and comes from a time when people didnt have as much information available to them as they do today.
Something negative happening on these visits will have an impact, I know that.


Now, back to this particular point. The leaders of our country have been on countless trips abroad, some no doubt branded trade missions, others surely were something else. No matter what they were called, they never never never have once stuck in my mind or "primed" me for any trips to those countries and never will to be honest.
Maybe I am different for the other 300 odd million US and british people that will be watching the various leaders visit Ireland.



We're all speaking from our experience.......and we're all punters to some extent yourself included - I dont know you from adam.
Granted, you might be in marketing and you may have more experience than a lot of people on this thread - that doesnt however make your opinion infallible.

I've spoken from from own experience. I've never based my holiday plans on the visits of our state leaders to other countries and don't intend to start doing so - integrated marketing campaigns or not.
I amnt asking for figures off you, I just know its exceptionally difficult to put a tangible number on the amount of people that will visit this country as a result of the visits of Barack Obama and The Queen apart from those that have traveled here in their entourage, as security or as foreign media. After that its very difficult to put a number on it and I believe any attempt to do so is complete pie in the sky/trying to justify expenditure.

Exchange rates, weather, value for money, safety are far more important to the tourist and indeed the repeat tourist than any level of visits by foreign states people.

You mark my words though - if tourism does increase this year, it'll be because of these visits and NOT because of decreasing prices, hopefully better weather in the summer and exchange rates. Those things never have any impact in tourist numbers studies..........


As for the "trade mission" - yeah, thats fine - call part of it whatever you want. I am sure some things will be announced after the trip that will be put down to this and probably correctly so.

I've actually grown fairly tired (in 24 hours) of the commentary on the visit. We're building bridges, we've "grown up as a nation" etc etc. Most of us have gotten over that kind of thing many many years ago and ironically the only ones who haven't gotten over it are the ones protesting. I couldn't give a crap, as I said, if the quenn came over on a top secret visit and did all those things that she is doing and if the British representatives just made a few phone calls to their Irish colleagues over trade. It's not as if they don't meet up every few weeks anyway........is it?

As for the tourist side of things, I really cant see how ANY of this will help improve tourist numbers - might knock them back if anything but you cant accurately work it out either way.

Again, my predictions were that people like yourself would accredit any increase in numbers to these visits.

Surely if you applied Occams Razor to this scenario you would attribute the increase in tourism (year on year) to the lack of an ash cloud prior to the period.........


Edit:
I know you are interested in Greece. Strangely enough, despite the turmoil over there in 2010, tourism into it was up marginilly on 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings
Just as well those 15 million or so visitors didn't need to see a foreign head of state visit there to see that it was business as usual.

Granted, the figures for Greece this year will be interesting although based on a quick scan there is appears the half year figures are showing that a similiar number of people will visit there this year..........

thebman

kippy wrote: »

No. I am not saying that, you are, but If the taoiseach said that times were exceptionally tough here and we have to save a few squids I am sure it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to any Visa programme (I edited the previous post to clarify what I thought of the subject)

You are arguing with a lot of if's and buts here by the way which is pretty shaky ground, being honest.

Well I'm not arguing that it definitely had an impact as you can't do that. I'm merely stating, it more than likely has an influence though impossible to measure.

But just like you can't prove the visits have a measurable impact on tourism, you can't prove they don't have an effect on it and other political issues.

There are lots of things in politics that can't be measured like that or proven. My argument would be that it is unreasonable to expect them to be measured like that as a consequence. It probably does have an effect but it is not provable.

Personally I'd never go anywhere because our Taoiseach or President went there but I do believe other people do these things because of such activities. There are people that decorate their entire living rooms to try to pretend they are royalty and all manner of similar nonsense. It is not really a big stretch to imagine they'd visit a country that the head of their state went to.

It basically comes down to how much they admire their leaders.