The Wild Atlantic Way as a catalyst for tourism and sustainable employment development in the North West of Ireland.

Abstract

In March 2014 Fáilte Ireland launched a new coastal drive, ‘The Wild Atlantic Way' (WAW). This new initiative provides a signposted route along the Atlantic coast from Kinsale in West Cork to Malin Head in County Donegal. The WAW presents a unique opportunity for peripheral areas that heretofore have failed to realise any substantial benefit from the tourism industry. For the first time an active campaign will direct tourists into areas that are often neglected and overlooked by tourism promoters (Fáilte Ireland 2014a). The focus of this study is to determine what efforts, if any, communities and business owners have made or intend to make, in order to take advantage of this new opportunity; to determine what level of co-operation, if any, exists between stakeholders; to examine what initiatives they are currently engaged in to take advantage of this unique opportunity and to uncover possible shortcomings in terms of readiness to take advantage of the WAW development by identifying strategic gaps. A key factor will be in determining the impact of the changes which key stakeholders will be encouraged to make. It is envisaged that these will involve elements of marketing, service delivery and customer service in the first instance and the research project will adopt or adapt established evaluation frameworks in order to do this.