Take the back roads of ireland
BACK-ROADS Touring has seen bookings for its Emerald Isle tour of Ireland move from number three to top spot during the COVID-impacted period, the brand’s Head of Sales Dylan Hearne has revealed.
Speaking to Travel Daily at Tourism Ireland’s Virtual Expo yesterday, Hearne suggested one of the key drivers for this trend is a desire for travellers to visit friends and relatives after a prolonged period of absence.
“Australia has the highest population of Irish pro rata of any country in the world, the US has the highest population overall... but it has a very high legacy value and whenever I talk to friends they always seem to have some Irish lineage in their family to go back and visit,” he said.
Hearne added that Ireland was also “on the radar” for the retired bucket list, baby boomer market, especially in combination with cruising out of Dublin to Iceland and Norway which have proved to be “hugely popular”.
Another strong driver for BackRoads in Ireland is its off-the-beaten track small group appeal, Hearne believes, with booking trends suggesting more travellers are seeking smaller and safer tours as the world emerges from the pandemic.
“Small group touring is becoming more in favour now because of COVID than it was pre-COVID and in our domain there are not too many operators that do what we do in Ireland which puts us in great stead going forward,” he said.
“We don’t actually do capital cities on our tours either, we’re not going to cliche destinations or sites that you would normally do on a mainstream tour...which from a safety perspective takes travellers away from that core conglomerate group...so there’s comfort and safety for the customer,” Hearne added.
Hearne added that Back-Roads is predicting near-normal booking volumes for Ireland in 2022 following an encouraging start to Sep, traditionally a strong month.
Back-Roads’ popular two-week full Ireland experience from Dublin to Dublin is priced from $5,519pp - for more details on the tour CLICK here.
pictured: The picturesque lakes of Killarney.