Dublin is the most visited County in Ireland and you can guess why! With all of it’s festivals, events, tourist attractions, affordable accommodation and scenic places to visit there’s no wonder it’s an adventurer’s Neverland! So how can these locations benefit your business?
St. Patrick’s Day and the luck of the Irish are some things that might come to mind when thinking about Dublin (or Ireland in general!), however there’s a lot more to Dublin than it’s popular Irish notions.
Dublin Tourism Facts
Overseas tourist visits to Ireland in 2016 grew by 8.8% to 8.7 billion. It was the best year for Dublin Tourism and its revenue with 13.1m visitors bringing in over €4.3bn! Dublin’s current return on investment is €1 –> €41.
Top 3 tourist attractions
Guinness Storehouse
The Guinness Storehouse remains Ireland’s most popular international visitor attraction with a total of 1,711,281 visitors in 2017! Since opening in in 2000 they have welcome 18 million visitors, absolutely crazy! Just from selling entry tickets alone their revenue topped €30m in 2016 let alone adding on the in-store income! Now that’s an impressive income…
Managing Director, Paul Carty, says “2017 was another incredibly successful year for the Guinness Storehouse. As well as welcoming more than 1.7 million visitors through our doors we also announced details of a €16 million expansion plan which will see the iconic Gravity Bar double in size. Our aim is to position Ireland and the Guinness Storehouse as a year-round, ‘must visit’ destination and to ensure that the contribution of overseas tourism to the economy continues to expand.”
https://www.guinness-storehouse.com/en
Dublin Zoo
Visitors to Dublin Zoo dramatically increased in 2016 and they have what they call their “baby boom” to thank for that! They had 50 new arrivals including:
- A male Rothschild Giraffe.
- Three red ruffed Lemur babies.
- A critically endangered Bongo calf.
- An Asian Elephant calf.
- A Rhino calf.
- A baby Gorilla.
How sweet!
In 2015 they welcomed 1.1m visitors and it has been increasing ever since almost reaching 1.45m (3% increase) in 2016. We are still awaiting their 2017 results but are expecting big things! They brought their total revenue to €29.96m in 2016 because of their large increase of visitors which is an €11m increase compared to their figure of €18.5m in 2015. Those figures are insane!
If you’re an animal lover, stop monkeying around and get yourself to the zoo!
National Aquatic Centre
Do you remember in March 2003 when the National Aquatic Centre opened in Dublin? Well, they have hosted a tonne of swimming events including:
- The 2003 European Short Course Swimming Championships.
- The 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games.
- They became the pre-training centre for 16 nations for the 2012 London Olympics.
- Hosting a number of international water polo events.
They also had a 14% increase of visitors in 2016 with over a million customers! Were you one of them?
https://www.nationalaquaticcentre.ie/
As you can see, Dublin Tourism is growing each year with large figures and these are only the top three! “Our visitor attractions are a great barometer for tourism activity, and the growth across most attractions reflects a record tourism year,” said Fáilte Ireland’s chief executive, Paul Kelly. “This growth can be even stronger if we all work together to unlock the further potential of our natural landscapes and built heritage.”
If you want to find out more about the attractions in Dublin for a weekend away or even a day out check out Visit Dublin and their top 10 things to do! We definitely recommend!
How could you better their visit?
The location of a business is always important, especially for retailers and hospitality companies, like hotels and pharmacies. You want to be in the middle of a popular area where the public can easily spot your shop or hotel. Being near a tourist attraction is a big advantage as well.
For example if your hotel is near Dublin Zoo you are likely to get more customers booking into your accommodation so that they aren’t far from where they’ve planned to visit.
This also benefits retailers and convenience stores because if a family is going out for the day they’re going to want lunch and drinks. Everyone knows food stalls inside tourist attractions are ridiculously overpriced, so where are they going to pay a visit? Your business!
You want higher footfall in your shop and the customers want every service possible for them to enjoy their visit. One service you could offer is an ATM! Think about it this way, to budget money on days out (as it can get pricey!) some people like to withdraw cash so that they know exactly how much they’re spending. By offering an ATM service on your premises you’re not only benefiting the customer but also your business. Here’s why:
- An ATM in an average convenience store increases basket spend by an average of 65%. So if you have an ATM onsite, the customer is more likely to see something in your shop that they want and start splashing their cash.
- It makes the customer more aware of your business whether it’s a shop or a hotel they will now know where in that area an ATM is. You don’t want to miss out on potential customers do you? 80% of users will revisit the ATM site at least once a week which drives footfall to your store. You also could be the only place with an ATM in the area….
- People feel much safer withdrawing their hard earned cash in a trusted environment, such as a hotel or local store, so you can bet that they will come to you for ATM use if you’re offering it.
According to the ACS Local Shop Report 2017, 58% of shops now have ATMs because 76% of customers pay by cash… you could be one of them! To find out more about how an ATM will benefit your business, check out this blog.
If you’re interesting in adding a cash machine service to your business, please get in touch and we’ll happily book an appointment for you to meet one of our team!
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