Sustainable Marine Tourism Trail Development – An Irish Perspective

Top left to right: Dr Stephen Hynes, Dr Daniel Norton Bottom left to right: Daithi Gallagher, Dr Desiree Farrell

On 17 November, the Whitaker Institute hosted a live webinar Sustainable Marine Tourism Trail Development – An Irish Perspective. The webinar discussed the Wild Atlantic Way (WAW), Ireland’s first long-distance coastal touring route, covering over 2,500 km along the West coast of Ireland. Launched in 2014 by Fáilte Ireland, the goal of the WAW is to further develop Ireland as a high-quality and competitive tourism destination in overseas tourist markets. As part of the EU Interreg project MOSES, researchers at NUI Galway used the WAW as a case study to examine what is required to develop sustainable coastal tourism trails. The webinar considered these issues from both the demand side perspective of the tourists travelling along the WAW and the supply side perspective of stakeholders at one point on the WAW. A recording of the event is available to watch back below.

The webinar included presentations on:

An Introduction to the Wild Atlantic Way
Daithí Gallagher, Fáilte Ireland

Wild Atlantic Way tourists: A survey of spending, activities and attitudes
Daniel Norton, NUI Galway

Building a sustainable marine tourism trail through community voices: Rathmullan, Co. Donegal
Desiree Farrell, NUI Galway

This webinar was the first in the Moses webinar series, which seeks to understand and quantify the sustainability dimension of Blue Growth with respect to the potential environmental impacts of key strategic marine sectors across the EU Atlantic Arc member states.

The MOSES Project is funded by the EU INTERREG Atlantic V Programme (2014 to 2020), Priority 4 Enhancing Biodiversity and the Natural and Cultural Assets.