Fáilte Ireland has revealed plans to give Dublin a €20 million facelift. It is setting up a taskforce to revive the image of Dublin and rebrand the city to tourists.
Speaking about the problems in Dublin, Fáilte Ireland chairman Michael Cawley said that, "we need to clean up its image". He added, "First of all we've got to create a unified brand about Dublin. We need one message and everybody behind that, like you have in New York with the I heart NY message."
The taskforce will be formed within the next six weeks and will aim to have the new logo and advertising message in place by spring. It will be made up of tourism, local authority and hospitality industry figures. Cawley indicated that the group would have, "a continuous mandate of marketing Dublin" and that initial expenditure on the project would be €20 million from public and private sector sources, over three years.
Cawley said that while it was easy to be deceived by the flattering tourism numbers, Dublin was losing out on market share to comparative cities like Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Barcelona.
Temple Bar came in for criticism with Cawley saying it was "less than an asset". The fact that the city is not the most attractive city for women, based on feedback, also needs to be improved upon.
As part of the plans to revamp the city Cawley aims to emphasise Dublin's literary heritage and sporting culture, which will include working hard to ensure the Rugby World Cup comes to Dublin.
