Embracing education and tourism development

“Let’s meet the students” Tourism awareness project-  By Heidi Woods Tourism Development Officer

Inishowen Tourism has focused their research and development on the children and teenagers attending schools in Inishowen over the past week. On this occasion a welcome addition to the theme of tourism was combined with education. Charlie McCarron who has been compiling valuable research on a community engagement project kindly invited the Inishowen Tourism team to present to the transitional (TY) students at Crana College, Buncrana. He has been working closely within the community, and it was a pleasure to provide students with some insight on the tourism sector; marketing activities at Inishowen Tourism. This was an opportunity to generate some ideas for their individual/group projects, and share thoughts on their locality. A selection of short videos, a brief overview of the methods we utilise, and a sample of our brochures we print were at hand for the students to browse through during the session. We would like to thank Charlie McCarron, and wish him well with his ongoing research.

LYIT hosting THRIC Conference – Leading the way forward in Sustainable Tourism

Blog by Heidi Woods Tourism Development Officer

Inishowen Tourism representatives Siobhan Kelly and Heidi Woods were pleased to attend the Annual Tourism and Hospitality Research in IrelandConference (THRIC) from 11 – 12 June. The conference was officially opened by Minster Joe McHugh TD on the morning of 11 June.  In conjunction with LYIT, RadissionBlu Hotel, Letterkenny, the Tourism College at Killybegs hosted the 11^th Annual Tourism Conference 2015.The conference runs on an all-Ireland inclusion providing an annual opportunity for the dissemination and presentation of research facilitating the tourism sector including hospitality and culinary operations.

This year’s conference theme ‘CollaborativeSustainable Development - The Way Forward for Tourism’ featured over 35 research presentations and was addressed by four key note speakers from Ireland, Scotland, England and Spain. These speakers included, Mr Pat Mccann, Chief Executive of Dalata Hotel Group PLC, Dr Diane Dodd, Director of IGCAT (International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism), Barcelona, Ms Helen Campbell, Head of Global Brand and Customer Marketing, Visit Scotland, Professor Kevin Hannam, Professor of Tourism Mobilities at Leeds Beckett University.